He repeatedly said his statement was politically neutral.

And that party is not just "kind of right wing", they believe in large scale "remigration" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration), which, to save you clicking the link, means "a far-right concept referring to the ethnic cleansing via mass deportation of non-white minority populations, especially immigrants and sometimes including native-born citizens, to their place of racial ancestry".

There is a wealth of difference between when random companies throw a few thousand at whatever the leading parties are, and this.

Every other country in the Americas was originally founded by Spanish or Portuguese or other non-Anglo European colonial powers, who generally had much larger native American populations, and did have substantial population intermixing; which is why today people in the US and Canada consider the entire racial category "Latino" - which was formed by exactly that admixture event - to be nonwhite, even though in Latin America itself individuals vary widely in exactly what proportions of white, native American, and black ancestry they have.

There are people, often native American nationalists or far-leftists sympathetic to native American nationalists because they are nonwhite, who do support remigration of whites from the United States and Canada. The most fundamental problems with this argument are that 1) the number of white people in these countries is much larger than the number of actual indigenous people and has already demographically swamped the indigenous many centuries ago; and 2) there was never any native American government with anywhere near the state capacity to even have immigration laws, let alone enforce them, at any point in history. Modern levels of state capacity are basically an invention of Western European technological modernity and came out of the same half-millenium-old process of historical development that lead to the conquest of North America by non-admixed whites to begin with. The very land areas recognized by international law that we label the United States and Canada are themselves white creations; there's zero indigenous American political or cultural continuity involved with them (which is indeed a major political grievance of native Americans and their political allies). There's no prior indigenous state that could be returned to after the expulsion of whites, if that were even physically tractable.

> There's a real racial asymmetry in the world between whites and nonwhites in terms of building countries people wish to live in.

I think your framing is incorrect - the asymmetry is far more to do with money and power than a shade of skin.

"ethnic cleansing" is an emotionally charged term that conjures genocide in the popular imagination. It is not a good descriptive term for what can rightly be described as regressive or ultra-nationalistic migration policy.

> Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction.

Ethnic cleansing is a completely accurate description of "remigration". It invokes strong emotions because the act itself is wrong.

[1]: https://www.flamman.se/techprofil-ger-miljoner-till-orebropa...

Mullvad is now a funnel into funding right wing extremist political parties.

Other services that use Mullvad:

Mozilla VPN

Netbird

Obscura VPN

Malwarebytes Privacy VPN

Tailscale

ProxyStore

Webhallen & Inet

Do not buy Mullvad VPN scratch cards in stores too.

I am probably going to switch to Proton VPN in light of this, but welcome more ethical and principled alternatives.

https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird/issues/1138

Why not Proton: https://pivot-to-ai.com/2024/07/25/proton-mail-adds-a-bitcoi...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48447103

(really, that's what I do)

Perhaps the alternative is to self host, but my friends can't do that.

It is about time we compile a list of VPNs to avoid.

There are many types of marginalised groups, and many other reasons to want to use VPNs. Putting everything on a left-right political axis seems more than a tad reductive.

Can you give some sources regarding the Ethnic cleansing?

> Some of its key issues include [...] large scale remigration

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration

> Remigration is a far-right concept referring to the ethnic cleansing via mass deportation of non-white minority populations

The party advocates for deporting people who are born in the country.

Deporting parents (thus with their children) is normal if they are staying in the country illegally without any sort of valid visa or permit, what's the alternative? Give citizenship to anyone crossing the border?

We are not talking about families or parents who visit a country for a few months and give birth, and you know that. We are talking about taking 15 year olds who have only known life in that country and deporting them to a country they've never been to.

> Why would being born in the country give you citizenship or the right to stay?

Because Sweden seems to think so? Many countries offer citizenship if you are born on soil, and while Sweden isn't one of them, it offers expedited paths to citizenship if you have lived in the country for a while. Because most people intuitively understand that there's no sense deporting someone who is more connected to Sweden than they are their home country.

Only ~16% of countries are having right of soil, it's not really the norm and it's mostly actually with many conditions for most, a ton of people are against what's happening with immigration so it's not really Sweden thinks so type of deal here, it's mixed opinion, similar to the US.

if they really want to deport regular integrated members of society who only differ for their color then I probably wouldn't agree with that policy of theirs if I was Swedish.

The linked article above is literally Wikipedia. You are wasting everyone's time.

This is answered in the first para of the linked Wikipedia article. "remigration" is not the parent poster's term, your misunderstanding of it is not on them at this point.

> Are you talking about immigrants (who are guests in the country)

No. and also, that statement about immigrants is false as a categorisation.

"You" ? Again, I ask you to do the reading and/or query the people advocating for such policies, and not me or the parent poster. Why do you persist in misunderstanding? We might be constrained by the bounds of law and making sense, but I do not think that the people advocating for such racist policies are.

> this whole talk is solely about immigration.

It is not, do not derail.

> is there any mechanism in the law ... If not

Are you ... are you seriously unaware that the party in power can literally make new laws? Or otherwise work around existing laws? Really?

The reason he has those millions to give is because of the money he made from Mullvad, no?

If he separates that, I’ll happily separate my judgement as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party

> Markus Allard takes inspiration from marxist ideology[32] and unites the "productive" classes of society against the "Transferiat", with the "Transferiat" being a term coined by Allard to describe the classes of society that lives off of transfers that are a net negative for society such as those who, despite having an ability to work, live off of social welfare benefits, as well as those who work "made-up services"[33] that the party deems serve no societal function, such as bureaucrats, consultants, public sector communications specialists, strategists and HR-specialists.

It's practically a copy and paste of the ideology behind "doge".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_N._Haldeman

"The technocracy movement proposed replacing partisan politicians and business people with scientists and engineers who had the technical expertise to manage the economy"

"Those how do not work, do not eat" - Mao

Interestingly, psychoanalysis in the USSR was aimed at helping the patient to go back to work, for instance.

> For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: If any one will not work, let him not eat.

> 2 Thessalonians 3:10

I also highly doubt USSR would accommodate people who move in and don't bother to integrate into the culture and speak Russian. Ask people from entire countries where Moscow did Russification, and those people didn't even move in from outside they already lived there.

USSR was schizophrenic in that regard. Early on, it had https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korenizatsiia, which was quite literally about de-russifying the local elites and promoting local languages. Then Stalin did a hard 180 on that, like he did on so many other things (e.g. re-criminalizing abortion and homosexuality, or reintroducing paid high school). I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that under Stalin, the USSR truly switched from being a left totalitarian dictatorship to right totalitarian.

They had strong opinions of what was deemed "socially useful" work and were not above abolishing those pursuits they deemed to be useless.

All able-bodied people were expected to work (in approved roles) and you would be provided a job if you couldn't find one but if you refused to work they would deem you a "social parasite" and prosecute you if you didn't reform your behavior.

Somehow, people seem to forget that Marxism is an ideology of workers.

Not really, Marx and company were nobles, lawyers, etc. The ideology concerns provoking a civil war and taking over, workers rights is just the rhetoric to cause the revolution. The worker’s paradise never materializes because it’s not actually about that.

Not all of the component parts of the ideology are necessarily false due to their introduction and popularization by Marx. Personally, I find his writings obtuse and his beliefs abhorrent. There is, however, merit in the idea that the state should benefit its people, a large percentage of which are the productive working class, but it shouldn't be ruled by the working class. The state is its people and their culture, it shouldn't oppose their interests or subjugate and exploit them for the advancement of ideals alien to them.

Why not, though?

I mean, if you subscribe to democracy, the only way this would not be true is if said democracy was somehow subverted into a caste system where only some people are de facto eligible to be elected.

> There is considerable evidence that the reduction in hours of work is a basic goal and commitment of the Communist movement and the Soviet state.

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP64B00346R0001002...

Being anti-immigration doesn't automatically swing the party to the right. As written on Wikipedia, "left-conservative" is probably the best label.

The Swedish far-left loves to, for instance, brand the governing party in Denmark as far-right, but they are actually also left-conservative.

It is possible (shocker) to be liberal and progressive, whilst also being pro-assimilation, pro-deportation, anti-immigration.

Yes, but the behavior in that quote, cutting social services, is none of the above. Using language associated with far left movements while promoting far right policies leaves you as a far right party.

> Being anti-immigration doesn't automatically swing the party to the right

Literally nothing in the quote I quoted is about immigration (though they hit that checkbox as well and it absolutely does swing you to the right).

By providing free healthcare and dental care or at least reducing out of pocket costs?

A very quick search yielded this short clip of Hillary Clinton:

https://youtube.com/shorts/Zsq32nNjNoE (no endorsement of overlays/etc intended, just the first result in the search)

USSR notably banned abortions for 20 years under Stalin, and homosexual intercourse for most of its existence.

And they're not just anti-immigration, they're pro-ethnical cleansing of people already living there.

source?

> In 2026 ÖP party leader Markus Allard sparked controversy on several occasions. In a debate hosted by Studio3 with Liberal member of parliament Martin Melin, Allard asked: "why won't the Liberals push for deporting 100 000 social welfare-Somalis?" and in the same debate said that "Sweden belongs to the Swedes. We have to make sure that we take care of our own damn people and we must deport these damn parasites who sit and live at our expense."

> A country has the right to determine who lives within it.

This is obviously true and every country has laws in place governing immigration and different laws in place governing handling of refugees. Given in most countries the ratio of immigrants to refugees is very high, what is it you’re objecting to? Countries can change their laws and often do, after a change in government. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with arguing for specific levels of immigration. But what you really shouldn’t do is retrospectively change the rules so that people who immigrated legally and settled in their adopted country are now threatened with expulsion.

It seems to me that in a lot of the discussion around immigration there is a subtext of “I don’t like how they behave/think/choose to live.” Which would be fine if people were honest about what they want - in which case, feel free to agitate for laws governing citizens’ behaviour. Don’t be a bad sport however if such laws don’t get passed. Another thing that apparently worries some people is criminality (as if that’s a function of race). By definition, something is criminal if it’s against the law. So enforce the law. Laws are typically not racist and criminals come in all flavours.

> Laws are typically not racist

They explicitly are in every liberal shithole (Canada, UK) because the goal isn't equality it's letting brownoids shit up the place because you people are culturally suicidal.

The Muslims in the UK right now are not culturally compatible with the UK. They need to leave, they do not belong.

How does what Allard said not fit this definition?

Being left and anti-immigration is not an oxymoron.

Though I must say, based on some comments here, that people who are defending the party's ideology do seem to read it in terms of race...

Also Swedes are an ethnicity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedes

Given the party's other points', I'd still say he's not talking about Swedes as an ethnicity but as a nationality, similar to how other non-far-right, conservative parties express their beliefs. I checked the page, and that quote is provided without the context, and since Sweden does not have birthright citizenship, I don't know if he's talking about non-naturalised kids or naturalised people.

Further complications come from the fact that stripping "bad" immigrants of nationality is now an acceptable talking point for liberal parties the world over, and that position is very popular with people of all origins, not just the ethnic Europeans. I'd even argue it's less popular among ethnic Europeans than those of other ethbic backgrounds.

But I'll acknowledge that defending that party's position requires giving tons of benefit of the doubt...

Don't put words in my mouth.

> No, a Somali who immigrated to Sweden is nationality wise Swedish and ethnicity wise Somali

You seem to misunderstand the concepts of nationality and ethnicity, and how naturalisation operates.

Please go ahead and define nationality and ethnicity. I’m happy to allow you to entirely define the terms to your ends and make an argument within those bounds. Please also tell us how the quoted statement calls out “naturalization” and “nationality” because it’s critical to you “not” doing racist apologia that both your definitions and the quoted statement are coherent.

If you ctrl f my username on this page, you'll find I'm arguing against racism and Islamophobia in another thread.

Let me make an assumption: you're an American liberal. Like many American liberals, you talk without knowing much about anything, with the purpose of feeling righteous, and appearing pure to others.

The world is more complex than what you read on the news.

I suggest you read "How immigration really works", by Hein De Haan, a book that explains why immigration is not a left or right issue. I also suggest you search definitions for these terms: nationality, ethnicity, naturalised immigrant.

The proposed policy here is squarely what Rome Statute, Article 7 (1)(d) is intended to prevent. Sweden is a party to the treaty.

The real number is around half, 67000.

Now if we assume social welfare-Somalis is a derogatory generalization of all kind of immigrates, including non-Somalis, then it is likely to be more than 100 000 immigrants that is on social welfare. They just won't all be Somalis, or even be the majority of them.

I'm so clever, everyone else is stupid

And then quite often people will still use their regular tracking-browser to access tracking-websites xD

Where the Örebropartiet (Örebro Party) usually are called extremist is in questions regarding immigration. They are of the opinion that people that move to Sweden should not integrate but also assimilate, and quickly, find a job. For some people, this might sound extreme, but I would argue that more than half of the Swedish population (and its parties) nowadays share this view, similar to how Japanese people and society broadly want people that move their to assimilate.

And it's super racist there too, I can assure you. My father in law is Korean but lived in Japan his whole life. There's no way to describe what he experienced except racism. People just hated him for being Korean.

I have no respect for people that concern troll about some vague cultural purity to disguise their prejudices.

Well I'm convinced.

"We just want assimilation" is the palatable marketing term for "We would be fine arresting people at their immigration hearings if they are brown enough." Just look at the U.S.

What you said is the same. One is according to what your relative said another is according to what my friend said.

I don't think it's crazy to expect assimilation. We are fascinated with different countries and cultures and we generally consider it's a good idea they exist and are different. Diversity is strength. But they can only be different if they have their own culture and traditions. Would everyone be so fascinated with Japan or Korea if it was not for their culture? Would they be the same without high trust society that is made possible by it?

What's that mean to you? In my city, immigrants work, run businesses, pay taxes, have kids and send them to local schools, ride the bus, complain about the weather, practice their religion. I guess the only thing they don't do is complain as loudly about the government as (many of) the rest of us. What more could they be doing to assimilate?

That's a rhetorical example of a human, every day conversation someone might have.

The fact that you took it literally and express concern about its veracity is very revealing. I don't generally police what my neighbors talk about.

So in other words he did experience racism?

> I don't think it's crazy to expect assimilation

What qualifies as assimilation is completely up to the reader. To some people, it means holding a job (although I don't know of any white people that get deported for being laid off). For some, it means not committing crimes.

For many, it doesn't matter if you have a job or if you're even born here. There is no standard of assimilation you can meet if you are ethnically different enough. That is why, again, the U.S. is currently arresting people at their immigration hearings. This is what far right politicians really want, they don't give a fuck about assimilation.

> Would everyone be so fascinated with Japan or Korea if it was not for that culture and high trust society made possible by it

Buddy, come on. Most people I know are not fascinated by Japan, they are fascinated by a romanticized idea of Japan that has been filtered through Reddit posts and Anime. They cultivate a one-dimensional understanding of the country specifically so they can daydream about it. A lot of Americans that "love" Japan would lose all interest the second they were told they can't dump their trash outside.

Not according to him.

> Most people I know are not fascinated by Japan, they are fascinated by a romanticized idea of Japan that has been filtered through Reddit posts and Anime

Somehow people I know who rave about Japan just don't watch anime that I know of. They just go there and like how everything is. The anime nerds I know don't talk about real Japan much.

If you don't have that fascination, fine. I was fascinated by tons of things there. I think most people were. And most people would say it's a horrible idea destroying that culture.

You have no specifics on how immigrants don't assimilate, and what part of the culture is worth preserving, or how you can even assimilate to a culture that is constantly developing. If I am ethnically Japanese and grow up in Japan, but I don't act like others, that is not a "lack of assimilation." That is me actively participating in a shift of the culture, and that's how everyone would see it. But if I were a different ethnicity in the same situation, I would be a problem immigrant anchor baby who is trying to destroy the culture of the country. Do you see the difference?

This idea that culture is able to be frozen in time and preserved is paradoxical. It's a cudgel used to bludgeon disadvantaged people who are perfectly functioning citizens, and even harm people who could make the country better, not worse. How do you expect immigrants to introduce new ideas to a culture if you elect politicians that will demonize and deport them if they are not sufficiently "assimilated"

I haven't been to Sweden. I take the word of people who have been there or live there elsewhere in this thread.

But elsewhere I definitely have seen communities of immigrants which don't speak local language and treat local population as less than themselves because they are of different religion.

> If I am ethnically Japanese and grow up in Japan, but I don't act like others

Examples please.

Racism is one of those things that unfortunately crosses political and social boundaries. Some groups just hide it better than others by enforcing anti-racism as a group norm.

That's not a subjective opinion I made, that is just a textbook definition of what we consider authoritative right. Left and right mean things, and they don't mean what traditionally progressive or conservative parties happen to be doing at that time.

I don’t care what textbook you are looking at, I’m looking at (or maybe writing) a different one. Left and right do not actually “mean things” if you intend for “meaning” to be universally or even widely agreed upon. I suppose for you “meaning” may only be relevant if a certain group or class agrees upon the meaning, but the rest of us will continue to say and believe what we want!

> but the rest of us will continue to say and believe what we want

Who is we? These definitions are mostly settled, and where they aren't, there are fuzzy differences, not huge gaps of disagreement. It's a shared language of understanding where people lie on a quadrant of politics. It's socially useful to have that language when posing political theory. Again, this does not mean political parties are permanently stuck to their quadrant. What do you think Republicans mean when they call themselves right wing? Nothing?

> I suppose for you “meaning” may only be relevant if a certain group or class agrees upon the meaning

What? You seem to be stuck on an idea that I am making some kind of partisan statement by saying a certain policy is left or right wing. That is not a value statement on whether it's good or bad. I don't know why you are so heated about this.

“Right-wing” politicians are arguing for nationalization in some cases and wielding industrial policy like they’re FDR. We may see price controls and even capital controls before long. The oil market interventions alone would make Stalin blush. Meanwhile they are jumping on regulation in other places, such as AI “safety”, and have floated hate speech bans (to combat antisemitism).

“Left-wing” pols (admittedly in the face of immense hate from their base) are coming out for free market solutions gently guided by the government and deregulation so we can build faster. Outside the US, you have bizarro world Labour policies in the UK (they seem to be aiming to absorb the Tories), China’s roaring Communist economy that’s the global hotbed of economic activity, etc.

The traditional categories still seem to hold in Latin America, for some reason. But that’s it.

What exactly does the left-right distraction provide except for an easily abused method for enforcing a (tenuous, completely malleable) group orthodoxy? These days it seems like people just use it as shorthand for “enemy”. Any heterodox position is automatically of the other wing, preventing adaptation to real-world circumstances. Some positions (like a land value tax) are somehow both left and right wing depending on who you ask. It’s infuriating.

> “Right-wing” politicians are arguing for nationalization in some cases and wielding industrial policy like they’re FDR

Nationalization is a policy lying on the left. State ownership of industry is the textbook left pole

> The oil market interventions alone would make Stalin blush

Price controls on markets are authoritarian left

> are coming out for free market solutions gently guided by the government and deregulation so we can build faster

Economic right, mildly libertarian

> What exactly does the left-right distraction provide except for an easily abused method for enforcing a (tenuous, completely malleable) group orthodoxy?

No, they provide categorization to resist group orthodoxy. People are going to categorize, that is human nature. Without these, the only way to categorize a policy is what the parties happen to be doing at the time. That causes a group orthodoxy. There are people describing themselves as "more left" or "more right" as a shorthand to reject group orthodoxy. There are people describing a policy as left or right, regardless of which party is doing it. You're not sparing anything by resisting policy categorization, you are making things less specific and more likely to default to broad buckets.

That doesn't mean you can't talk about the policies in specifics, it means they lie on a very flexible and descriptive map.

This tendency to force everything into a black or white frame is what gives us politicians who run without platforms, on party label alone, and who then adopt unpopular or harmful positions when in office.

At some point we decided that platforms don’t matter, and if platforms exist, they must be orthodox. This is a problem!

This sounds like you expect very few people to do this. I can't speak for others but this was exactly the first thing I did upon hearing about it, and

> Where the Örebropartiet (Örebro Party) usually are called extremist is in questions regarding immigration.

is exactly the conclusion I came to, based on their statements about "parasites". Not the integration aspect indeed...

Also what this group leader has done in Örebro to contextualize this quote

> ”I hope they will do similar things on the national level as in Örebro”, writes Daniel Berntsson to Flamman.

https://www.orebropartiet.se/var-politik/

Are his public stances on immigration precisely stated as remigration, or does he describe a thing such as remigration without explicitly naming it as such?

About his quote from wikipedia "They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish." which links to this video tweet https://x.com/AllardKlipp/status/2060109271635771457 can you give full context/translation?

Ask yourself the following questions.

1. Who decides whether you don't belong into Swedish culture?

2. Do the requirements change?

3. How many generations removed before your rights aren't conditional?

No, they have 8 people elected: 3 in the region, 5 in the municipality.

They got 4,46 % of the votes in the region, and 7,92 % in the municipality. And who knows, maybe they'll use that 5 million SEK to get more seats in this years election.

For all the stuff about free dentists this sounds pretty right wing to me.

But if your kids spend the first dozen years of their life in a country, they should get to stay in that country.

Instead of being in the country the day you're born, it's being in the country for something like 90% of your life from birth until somewhere in your teens.

It does!

Versus jus soli which includes people that are only days old...

> again, if their parents have no grounds for residence, it is typical

Again I'm talking about what I find moral, not what's typical.

And if you have no grounds for residence you're usually not staying there for over a decade. If someone does stay and raise a child for well over a decade, despite lack of grounds, there's a point where that child shouldn't be forced "back" to a "homeland" that isn't their actual home.

Also if it's more convincing we could stick to a threshold of 18 for right now. That would still do most of the job.

If you've heard the term "Dreamers" then you'll understand this isn't some weird isolated idea I have.

If they don't speak the language because their parents actively kept them from integrating into the land's culture which they (the parents) consider to be bad in some way, they (the children) violated the laws of the land and have well-filled rap sheets, they go out of their way to voice their dislike of the culture which allowed their parents in and they live on welfare because working is for 'svenner' they are very much invited to leave on the first ship or train of plane whether they like it or not.

"They should also be deported, even if they were born in Sweden, because they don't have a natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedes. I am prepared to walk over corpses here, and that is what separates me from these other damn politicians." [1]

[1] https://x.com/AllardKlipp/status/2060109271635771457

If any of my peers spoke like this, I'd cut them out of my life in an instant.

I mean, have you seen the political discourse on the left? they want to literally eat the rich. They rejoice every time a right-wing exponent gets shot and they defend all kinds of criminals.

The left is no better than the right in this sense.

The Örebro Party (Swedish: Örebropartiet, ÖP) is a local populist political party in Örebro, Sweden, led by Markus Allard. It holds seats in the Örebro municipal and regional assemblies, focusing on local populist policies such as reducing politicians' salaries, stricter migration, and free dental care.

Sweden has undergone a horrible transformation in the last several years where gang warfare and especially bombings have skyrocketed. Most of the new gang violence in the last several years is from migrants from North Africa and the Middle East, after Sweden implemented a generous immigration policy.

https://nct-cbnw.com/an-explosion-a-day-in-sweden-what-is-go...

There's nothing to indicate that this party is "far right" at all. It's a populist-based party but the stance on immigration is definitely linearly correlated to the violence that was brought in by immigration. Lowering politicians' salaries and free dental care doesn't sound very far right to me.

Your own link says,

"The defenders of Sweden’s once generous immigration policy will point out that, according to a report released in February 2024, 88% of the 14,000 people deemed to be active in criminal networks are Swedish citizens, and only 8% of these are dual citizens. 11% are non-citizens, and the remaining 1% was not known. An additional 48,000 people in Sweden were deemed to be linked to criminal networks, although not actively involved."

And it links to the report.

Did you think people wouldn't read it, or what? (Assuming you are not a bot, ofc. There seem to be a lot of them flooding every platform talking about this.)

The article you linked to also says:

"In an interview with SVT in January 2025, the Swedish Police’s Erik Lindblad said that they had seen an increase in what he termed “instrumental violence” where it is not people that are targeted but instead “fixed objects such as staircases and businesses”.

The reasons for the bombings are, in several cases, “suspected to be motivated by extortion against businesses or people linked to businesses and their families”, according to the Swedish authorities’ crisis information website. Mr. Lindblad also noted that the attacks can often be part of wider criminal conflicts, although these cases are often an exception to the rule, in their opinion.

Serious crime and the actors within those networks are often behind the attacks, according to Mr. Lindblad. “They use violence to get their way, irrespective of if it is revenge, or a battle over a drugs market, or extortion,” he said.

Thankfully, given that the explosions normally target doors, staircases, or businesses, the explosions do not always result in injuries and rarely kill people."

In any case, I do not actually care whether they are "far-right" or "far-left" or whateverthefuck. Left vs. Right is an infamously limited, binary horse-race way to talk about politics, one that groups disparate issues together arbitrarily. If you somehow convinced me they weren't fascist (though they are), I would not suddenly change my opinion of them just because the label changed.

The thing that actually matters is that they want to forcibly expel innocent people (including sending 2nd generation immigrants who were born and raised in Sweden to a country they have never lived in and have no connections to or familiarity with) from their homes en masse because it's convenient to blame them for all the nation's problems, based on zero evidence and maximum racism. There is no way to suggest something like this that is not monstrous.

Mullvad's mealy-mouthed defense of this is pathetic. There can be no tolerance for intolerance.

People are surprised that a privacy-oriented businessman is right-wing is very strange.

"Millions" in the title is also misleading in this context - it's millions in Swedish Kronor, which is roughly $500K USD. A lot, but the title seems intentionally misleading.

I've also never really understood the cycle of boycotting things because you don't like how an individual spends their own money. Almost every company will employ people who have values you severely disagree with, and put money toward those causes. And turning to Proton as the alternative is... a choice?

The start of this thread was primarily people saying they were taking their money elsewhere - and then suggesting Proton, whose CEO was in the hot seat for praising the Republican party. It makes no sense to have such a violent reaction to something like this and not consider that competitors could be similar.

The reality is that in general, your money is always going to somebody you don't want it to go to.

Translated from Swedish wikipedia: --- Örebropartiet was founded by Markus Allard in the spring of 2014, when he was recently expelled from the Left Party and the Young Left. [...] Among the party's main issues are reduced politicians' salaries, reduced bureaucracy, civil servant responsibility, assimilation policy and the repatriation of people who do not adapt. ---

I think it is very reasonable to demand that people try to integrate when coming to a new country - learn the language, get into the culture. As a Swedish person I think this is missing from our integration politics, which is an often talked about topic in the last years.

In the end this is a political question and sadly instead of engaging in dialogue the reaction to these questions feels like it most often leads to polarization and division. Inclusion means also including people with different beliefs and respecting their opinions, even if we don't share them. Through understanding comes empathy.

Can recommend "The Righteous Mind" by moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt who discusses this in a book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Righteous_Mind

Fun fact: we get a dopamine release when taking an opposing stance and then seeing (subjective) proof of our stance. It requires self-discipline and fighting your impulses to avoid polarization.

What kind of things might be involved in a mandate for people to "get into the culture?"

If you come from a culture of groping women, not doing is gonna be a challenge. I get it. But we’ve also built mosques and have pagan festivals and allow public servants to wear their choice of religious attire. I think it’s a balance, but nobody is ever happy with wherever you set the balance.

When I learn the local language, I’m happier; it’s nice to talk to people. Not everyone agrees.

Tja.

Multi-culturalism should be about championing different cultures and not forcing everyone into a cultural homogeneity.

Dismissing any amount of integration is chicanery. We’re pro-social creatures, and knowing the lay of the land makes your life better.

This is standard for most of the world. Really, only some countries, all of them developed, are exceptions to this.

even as a german i have not felt welcome anywhere in germany (i grew up im austria).

i have been around the world and lived in a number of countries. i felt more welcome in china and even in the US for example than anywhere in europe

and i don't know what XI has to do with that. politics doesn't affect how people interact. not that quickly anyways. i was around when the big exodus happened in the mid-10s, and after covid china opened up instead of closing down. i don't even need a visa anymore if i just want to visit china. so even by that measure china has become friendlier. but that's not the kind of friendliness i mean.

Are you white? Try being non-white. Chinese people, and most Asians - yes, the entire continent, or at least most of it - are deferent to white people.

> and even in the US for example than anywhere in europe

The US is one of, if not the most, welcoming countries in the world. Additionally, I suppose you probably lived in a city or at least a large town in the US rather than anywhere rural or more closed-off.

Where I'm from (Northern Ireland) harassing women and attacking emergency services have been part of the culture for as long as I remember. Would you suggest that people arriving should actively take part in these behaviours?

I would assume that if attacking emergency services is the norm in Northern Ireland, so is police escorts of emergency services. That is not the norm in Sweden, through it has become the norm for certain regions where emergency services no longer feel safe going on an emergency call. The downside is that if the police is delayed, so is the emergency service, and naturally the quality of emergency service is reduce in those locations which some people say is a form of discrimination.

(My experience with Irish/Northern Irish people is that they're very friendly and welcoming, but I've only been there a couple of times).

But then we're getting a bit deeper into the issue. These are things that need to be considered if you want to mandate "integration" surely.

We now want people to integrate but we also recognise that there's a higher moral code which should supersede local customs. Is that correct? Then it seems like integration isn't the actual aim, but the shaping of people into a sort of ideal which is actually removed from local cultures.

We're also onto picking and choosing between the "better" and worse local traditions. But who is the arbitrator for which traditions are good and which are bad?

I did a bit of the integration course by choice, even though it’s not mandatory as a EU national. I found it fine, a bit boring because we grew up with most of these customs. The Flemish ‘traditions’ were all new to me, and I also realise I don’t follow them; but respect some if I’m invited to people’s houses.

I think we’ve made a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to integration. It’s neither super forced and awful nor useless.

By all means provide encouragement and resources so that people can adapt to their new situation, but don't demand it.

However, it does seem that this Swedish party is willing to "repatriate" even Swedish-born citizens, so at least they're consistent.

You wouldn't expect your child to be Pakistani if you get birth over there as 2 German individuals.

What you said makes no sense. Vanishingly few liberals believe laws should apply equally to citizens and non-citizens. If they did, they'd be for the complete abolition of visa/residency conditions altogether, simply allowing anyone to immigrate to the country. I doubt that even in the US more than 5% of people believe this. Any European country it'll be <3%.

Any visa/residency condition is a demand not imposed on citizens. Language and cultural assimilation aren't any different from other such conditions.

One issue is how the standard applies to different languages. A2 in French is enough to get by around Brussels, but B1 in Dutch is barely enough to understand people where I live now (dialects are to blame as well, of course).

Familiarity with one Latin-based language means other Latin-based languages “sound understandable”. I’ve no other connection to make with Dutch. But okay, that’s just personal experience.

Because not everyone in the UK could even hope to bend to work with Polish as a language in 1946.

Yes.

> does that also include reading/writing?

Yes.

> What level of language ability would be considered the minimum

C1.

I disagree. They should learn the language of their own accord or get kicked out.

> C1.

Yes! And I would expect immigrants in citizen-facing jobs in the public sector to be at C2.

I can't agree, even though we likely have the same goals. You want to filter for people who work very hard to do their best to integrate. You don't want to filter for being good at self-studying languages. Most people just suck at self-studying through not much fault of their own, they were raised that way. It can also be incredibly useful for non-language integration purposes, as it gives them hours of direct contact hours with natives which - again, for the dedicated ones, which are the ones we want to stay - often leads to social contact and further integration.

I get where you're coming from, but the tax dollars needed for such language schools are really negligible, and I've seen with my own eyes the benefits to integration that couldn't be had without it. It's just a good cheap investment. I'd still apply the same final bar as you would, FWIW.

B2 is conversational + able to hold a discussion about theoretical concepts in multiple temporal forms. That’s plenty.

There are > 190 countries in the world and many of them require immigrants to meet at least the same criteria for employment and assistance as born citizens.

the majority needs to welcome and support the minority.

and it's not that there is no burden on the immigrants. they still have to learn to understand the local language, culture, rule of law, etc...

we should learn from each other and take the good from each. the burden for that is on both sides.

>the burden should always be on the ones who are stronger to accommodate those who are weaker.

Is this a universal principle? Does this come with any limits at all? A salient example that comes up often: classrooms tend to have a small handful of extremely disruptive students that ruin the experience for everyone else. The current thinking is to not suspend/expel these kids because they are disadvantaged or whatever. But in doing so the other kids suffer greatly, not to mention the teachers.

How do you manage different dimensions of strength/advantage? It is the weakest in society (women, children) that bear a disproportionate burden of allowing large amounts of immigration from third-world countries. Why are the rights of women and children secondary to the rights of immigrants?

thank you for recognizing that. i believe this helps us have a reasonable discussion about this topic. let me also add that neither my beliefs nor any premises they are based on are set in stone. they are open to be challenged provided the challenge makes a good argument or presents new evidence that i was not aware of. i have certain goals in mind or rather a vision of how our society should develop that influence my beliefs, and maybe we should talk about those too, but for now let me address your direct comment.

Is this a universal principle? Does this come with any limits at all?

universal, maybe, unlimited, i don't think so. it's more about balancing. on average minorities are weaker, have less strength to protect themselves or to lobby for their needs. etc. maybe accommodate is not the right word, probably support is a better way to express what i have in mind.

but how we accommodate or support depends on the circumstances. allowing kids to disrupt the class because they are disadvantaged is not accommodating or supporting them. what we actually need to look at is why they are disadvantaged, and fix that. not an easy task. but for the classroom example specifically there actually exists a proven solution, namely montessori. without going into details montessori allows teachers to accomodate each child individually without requiring a better teacher student ratio. one montessori teacher can handle 30 children.

but let's get back to integration in society. if you allow me to read that into your comment, your choice of example suggests that you understand accommodating as lowering our standards. (and that's why i now think accommodating was a bad word choice)

i definitely do not believe that we should lower our standards. we should be less rigid maybe, and less punitive and more educational when standards are violated.

but as the majority we also need to learn about these minorities, their background, their culture, why they came here, etc. we need to approach conflicts with an attempt to understand and work with them to find a way to live together.

btw, i moved to a developing country precisely because i wanted to get a first hand experience of the culture there and understand where these people are coming from, what attracts them about europe or other developed places, and what is holding the local development back.

It is the weakest in society (women, children) that bear a disproportionate burden of allowing large amounts of immigration from third-world countries.

i am not comfortable with that statement. first of all what would the burden be that children have to bear here? are you talking about problems in school with classes being dominated by children that do not speak the local language? if that is it then well, the solution is to invest more money in education. train teachers, realize that it doesn't make any sense to teach children in a language that they do not understand, etc. the need for education reform has been discussed elsewhere, and that's a global problem. the challenges caused by immigrant children only make that reform even more pressing.

as for the burden of women, again, please explain what you mean. if you are talking about violence at least in germany the majority of violence against women still comes from germans, and even though immigrants are over-proportionally represented in the statistics, most cases of violence happen at home which means that they are not cases of immigrants against german women. those cases are the absolute minority but they are grossly over-represented because local women are much more likely to report such violence than immigrant women and furthermore are the causes for violence more likely the socioeconomic status of immigrants, and their lack of integration (many young refugees come without their family and are not only not integrated locally, they are not integrated at all, so immigration itself is not the root cause) therefore i do not see that as a fair claim that women bear a disproportionate burden through immigrants. unless you mean something else, but then please share what you mean here.

as i said, i am open to have my beliefs challenged, so feel free to question anything i say. i am here to learn and i am looking forward to an educational discussion.

Montessori kids tend to have parents that produce better kids (both in the genetic sense and in terms of how they are raised).

It's a selection effect (also on the teacher side), not because they have a magic way of turning disruptive/dangerous/criminal kids into little angels.

i have seen it work in china, and i can tell you that chinese kids are not angels, no matter how wealthy the parents are. actually the more wealthy the more likely those kids are misbehaved because those parents come in with a lot of entitlement that their children inherit.

furthermore the name montessori is not protected, so there are a lot of fake schools out there. therefore i suggest you look at the actual method and reason through the claims of why it is working.

the magic way that you are looking for is to give each child individual attention and then let them work by themselves. kids are disruptive most often because they are bored. children in a montessori class are never bored because they can choose themselves what to work on. that montessori works can therefore be reasoned from first principles. it does what everyone recommends: give more attention to children, and give them work that they are actually interested in.

if you object to that then i'd request that you provide actual evidence of the method failing instead of repeating claims without substantiating them.

To give an example from my own life/experience, I'm an American and Canadian woman, but I'm also a disabled lesbian. I feel uncomfortable when I go places (e.g. Ikea) and see Muslim families where the men are dressed in Western clothing and the women are niqabis, because it's an outward signal to me that they follow an interpretation of religion that is sexist and homophobic and are likely to be hostile to my existing.

There can be power overlap between the weakest members of the stronger community and the strongest members of the weaker community.

For the record, I don't have those feelings around all people of Middle Eastern descent or people who are visibly Muslim but not displaying an adherence to a particularly conservative interpretation of their religion (e.g. a hijabi in Western clothes or a group where some of the women are hijabis/niqabis and others aren't). I do have those feelings around white people who similarly display such conservative religious leanings (Amish, Haridem, etc.). It's purely ideological, not ethnic or racial.

The thing is, as a native, I don't have a choice to be here, whereas immigrants do. So why am I assumed to be the 'stronger' one, and why should ethnicity and religion override any other power dynamic?

but that is very subjective and projects a fear that in my opinion has no basis in reality. i have felt the discomfort myself, even as a man, and i have asked myself where does this discomfort come from. my conclusion is a bit difference than yours.

first of all it helps to look into the history of this culture. as you notice that this is not specific to muslims, but is in fact historic to our own culture as well, what the amish are doing today was the norm in the western world just a few centuries ago. we all did it, and therefore it is not an immigrant problem.

the headscarf in particular was commonly worn by women even less than a century ago. there is nothing sexist or homophobic about it. it's culture. correlation is not causation. i'd argue that most women in the western who still wear these do it by choice, not because they are forced by their husband. for many it's a fashion statement. an outward representation of their personal belief (as an islamic woman).

if you look closer you will also find that many muslim women in the west do not cover their hair, but normally you can't see them because without the headcover you would not even know they are muslim.

it is also worth considering that in part the intention of covering up was for the protection of women. the scary part for me is who they needed protection from. but our western society is plenty misogynistic still, we have just become better at hiding it.

and are likely to be hostile to my existing.

this i find completely baffling. why would they be hostile to you? i believe if you talk to these women and get to know them and learn their motivations that will help you get a better perspective, and alleviate your fears.

The thing is, as a native, I don't have a choice to be here, whereas immigrants do

which choice are you referring to here? the choice to not cover their head? the choice to go against their own beliefs? the choice to disagree with their husband/family? those that have the choice and and to do it, are doing it. those that don't either don't have the choice or choose not to. it's up to us to get to know them to understand the difference.

why am I assumed to be the 'stronger' one?

stronger in numbers. we are the majority still.

why should ethnicity and religion override any other power dynamic?

which other power dynamic? religion still is the strongest power dynamic in every society. even in the west. atheism is effectively a religion too. it's just another belief. trying to suppress religious expression means to remove religious freedom. do we really want that? what if it is your beliefs that are being suppressed? you would not want that. we have to allow for others to follow their beliefs even if they contradict ours. but we have to learn to get along because rejecting people for their beliefs only pushes them into extremism.

I really dislike the idea that my discomfort has to come from ignorance. It doesn't. I've actually spent time in the Middle East (and yes, I wore a hijab). I am aware that the idea that the niqab is compulsory is not held by the majority of Muslims and it's a particularly conservative reading to consider it compulsory. I'm also aware that some women choose to be niqabi, which is why if it's one or two in a group it doesn't bother me - that's indicative of it being a choice, and if the niqabi is accompanied by hijabis or uncovered women it signals that she accepts variance in interpretation. When it's every single one, though, that tells me that it's likely that group of people has conservative Muslim views.

In terms of listening to people, I've also listened to ex-Muslims and queer people from Muslim backgrounds. I've found a lot of 'sit down and listen to X group' presents you with the most privileged takes from that group: You want me to listen to the Western revert, not the women from Afghanistan.

And again, I do feel uncomfortable with white people/people of my own ethnicity who outwardly display signs of belonging to fundamentalist/conservative religious groups. I don't like fundamentalist Christians, super Orthodox Jews, etc. I'm judging them by the same standards I judge anyone else. If anything, giving them a pass feels rather like the racial version of benevolent sexism.

I was referring to the choice on where to live. Unless they're refugees, immigrants make a choice about living in their new country and they have the option to leave/go back to a place where the culture agrees with them. I can't leave.

> religion still is the strongest power dynamic in every society.

Strongly disagree. I'd put class and sex up there alongside religion, personally. Those are strong power dynamics that exist even in societies where everyone is of the same religion/ethnic group.

I don't say anything to any of these people and I do live with the discomfort, but my point is to say that in this situation someone is going to be uncomfortable. It's either going to be me, knowing that they think I shouldn't exist, or them, feeling like they can't express themselves. There is also another lens for looking at this, which is freedom of speech. They have the right to express their beliefs (non-verbally) that I'm a degenerate who's going to burn in hell, and I have the right to express my belief that their beliefs are extremely off-putting and I'd rather not be around them.

no time now to respond in detail. i'll come back to that. but it appears you have a great deal of experience to share, so i'd like to ask up front to please share more.

just one thought that may indicate where my response might be going. being uncomfortable with other some people is something that makes me question my own feelings and beliefs first of all. why do those people make me uncomfortable, and what can i do about it? but to understand your discomfort i would really like to learn more about your experience.

another aspect of this discussion is the question of where the future of our society is going and how we best deal with conservative elements that reject change. anyways, i'll probably need a day or so for a more thoughtful response.

Other context: I live in Michigan, and there are actually Muslim majority towns and cities here - I don't live in one, but I do travel to/through those areas and where I live does have a Muslim population and there's nothing unusual to me about seeing a hijabi/visibly Muslim people out and about, so I'm coming from the point of view of those populations establishing places where they are the majority. And they've also used the power they've accrued on the local level to display hostility towards queer people. It's not a theoretical I'm making up in my head to enrage myself.

Specifically, I spent time in Jordan, which is a country that has a wide variety of people and people practicing Islam in different ways, so I'm definitely not under the illusion that all Muslims are the same or are extremists.

I definitely agree that we should question how and why something or someone makes us uncomfortable, and I agree that the first step should be interrogating our feelings and determining if they have a basis or if they're just knee-jerk displeasure towards change or something different. I have actually sat with these feelings for a while specifically because they're so taboo in left leaning spaces, and all I have heard is similar to what you say: That I'm bigoted, don't understand, etc. That's one reason I actually did go out of my way to learn and understand more: I wanted to interpret that criticism in good faith, and I agreed that I should know more before judging.

I have major theological and moral objections to central parts of all 3 of the Abrahamic faiths, even outside of the 'do you believe in God?' question.

Another piece of context is that I'm a 38 year old lesbian woman and I grew up in an environment where conservative religious movements were actively and openly hostile to me. I remember reading articles when I was 6 years old about how damaged and sinful I was, I remember the reactions to Matthew Shepard, etc. If anything, I've grown more comfortable with religious expression over time: when I was younger, I viewed any open display of religious faith as signaling that person was dangerous to me. I've also spent most of my life hating that I'm a lesbian and wanting, desperately, to be at least bisexual so I could be normal. I still struggle with this.

The question of larger society is one reason why I feel uneasy about the situation: I think the most likely path towards assimilation/acceptance for the Muslim community is doubling down on the conservatism and becoming allies with the Christian right. The fact that the Muslim community is full of people who think that my life should involve me being married to a man and unable to say no to sex/being raped repeatedly fills me with horror and makes it very hard to want more of them in my area. That's why I'm pro-assimilation: it's self-preservation.

If Muslims want to live in America and wear hijab, pray five times a day, observe Ramadan, etc. I don't care, but I draw the line at ideologies that perpetuate sexism and homophobia. (And again, I don't want fundie Christian immigrants or fundie Jewish immigrants either, and a white conservative Muslim family isn't any more acceptable to me.)

To me, when I see families/groups that are openly displaying conservative Muslim values, they are openly saying they don't want me in their society and if they had a choice, they'd get rid of me. Why wouldn't that make me uncomfortable? If you went out and about and saw people wearing 'castrate all men' shirts or a symbol that represented 'all men can be made to like cock if you ram it up their ass while they scream until you break them down', you would be comfortable with that? With those people existing in your city?

If you want me to live a life where I'm sexually assaulted regularly to please your God, I'm entitled to view that as a threat. If you openly express affiliation with that, I'm entitled to consider you hostile to me and not want to 'get to know you'.

i would like to continue this discussion, but some things i would like to share are to personal to be posted here in public. though if you are interested, my email is in my profile. i don't need to know your identity so if you find an anonymous way to email me that would work just as well.

that out of the way here are some thoughts i can add: i am firmly on the side of integration and creating a diverse community. allowing a minority to isolate themselves by becoming a majority in their area/town is neither integration nor diversity.

on your reaction to criticism, all i can say is well done. the struggle here is that it is difficult to share all that within the limitations of text messaging among people who don't know each other, and i guess my excuse for having had any doubts is that i believe that to many people make the same arguments without having made an effort to question them unlike what you did.

i am curious about your objections against religions, but not to counter them but rather to find out how they relate to the objections i have myself. (maybe that too is something better discussed in private. discussions on religion don't tend to go well on HN)

when it comes to being comfortable with religious expression of others the trajectory matters. yours is going in the right direction. you made an effort to learn more and you did become more comfortable. i could not ask for more than that, so there is nothing for me to add.

i am sorry you have to struggle with your sexuality. that's something i wish noone should go through. i don't know if i can relate, all i can say is that i am uncomfortable as a man to be associated with the typical concept of masculinity. in a world where generalizations are common i find it difficult to differentiate myself from the typical/normal (or what is generally considered normal/average) male. unlike the ability to dissociate from a religion if you disagree with it and no longer believe, i can't dissociate from being male no matter how much i reject the idea of masculinity.

anyone who believes that sexual assault in marriage is ok has failed to understand their own religion. this is why i struggle with the idea that the public expression of affiliation should be considered hostile. i now understand why you feel like that, and with your experience i believe that your feelings are justified, but for me people who believe that assault is right or have other equally extremist ideas in my eyes are not muslims or christians or whichever other religion they claim to follow but have actually strayed from god because neither the bible nor the koran or other religions that i know of allow that. and anyone who is citing quotes in defense or as criticism is not arguing in good faith. but i am saying that as an outsider, not being muslim or christian myself.

i think i said enough controversial things now so again, any more i'd rather share in private.

That won't last long among the young in Sweden, actually. Not if the current immigration policies continue, that is.

And there is the problem. You see, in modern Sweden (and many other European countries) it's entirely possible for migrants to live for decades without learning the language, understanding the culture, or even respecting the rule of law.

The majority needs to welcome and support the minority AND the minority needs to do their best to integrate. Right now the latter part is badly failing in Sweden, which is the reason for extreme amount of gang violence and social inequality plaguing Sweden. It's not even fault of the Swedes or the migrants, it's a systemic problem. The migration and integration policy is broken.

Assimilation really happens at the level of their descendants, who grow up entirely within the host country, going to their schools, consuming their pop culture, etc, and think of themselves as Swedes or Americans or whatever.

It's the same for a country. It's because it has borders, rules, and a strong culture that it has something to offer that immigrants might be interested in.

Yes, it is reasonable to demand people who come into a country adapt to rules - written and to a certain extent also the unwritten, of which Sweden has many - of that country. When in Rome, act as the Romans. This adaptation will never be 100% but that is not the point, what is most important is that newcomers learn to assimilate to such a level that the natives are open and willing to maybe integrate some parts of the newcomer's culture.

People who 'are the last representatives of [their] culture' can write a book about it while becoming part of their new culture since it is clear that their old one did not stand the test of time. They're much better off that way instead of living like cultural fossils for the likes of NPR and PBS to make documentaries about. By all means document what that extinct culture had to offer but life is for the living and culture is the commonly agreed upon set of rules how to live it.

Multiculturalism is a pipe dream, something dreamt up by people who listened to one too many version of John Lennon's Imagine. It has been shown not to work time and time again, it makes it harder for people coming in to a new country to assimilate and integrate because there is no clear target to aim for. Culture is not a fixed thing, it evolves through time by adopting new things and getting rid of old customs. Multiculturalism does not call for cultural evolution, it calls for revolution: here's a whole new culture, now deal with it. Revolution hardly every works and when it does it tends to go badly for those on the wrong side of it.

But at the same time, you should not be expected to give up your culture (as long as it is not doing something against the law).

I'm an immigrant to the EU/NL (naturalized, now a citizen), and I also lived in Sweden for a short stint. If Swedes are anything, they're open and welcoming, I'd even say too open and welcoming, which is part of why these issues keep cropping up.

Some context so I'm not immediately written off as ignorant or as carrying some kind of agenda: I grew up in Indonesia. My family is largely atheist, but we lived in Aceh (look up Qanun Aceh, it's Sharia law territory) and various other places around the country. I've been immersed in Islam, every sect of Christianity, Buddhism (I went to a Buddhist school as a kid), and Balinese Hinduism. I went to an international school with people from literally everywhere, and I'm still close with many of them, scattered across the globe as they now are. I say this to establish that I've actually lived among a wide range of people, cultures, and religions, this isn't an abstract opinion.

This isn't unique to EU immigrant communities either, I've seen the exact same pattern in Indonesia. Many (I want to stress: many, not most, but certainly too many) immigrant groups are remarkably insular and resist integrating in any meaningful way, even multiple generations in. They don't learn the language, don't adopt the host country's customs, and make essentially zero effort to become part of the society they live in. This gets worse where there's already a large existing community of the same background, those often calcify into enclaves where you're functionally not living in the host country at all anymore.

At a certain point, we also have to admit that some immigrants are the source of the problem.

Where I land is this: host countries should expect integration from long-term and permanent residents, and should actively support it via language access, civic education, real investment in helping people become part of the society they're settling into, rather than leaving newcomers to sort it out alone or quietly tolerating permanent parallel communities. What that integration looks like has to be specific to the country in question, because "host culture" isn't one universal template, integrating into Aceh's legal and religious framework is a very different thing from integrating into Sweden's secular, liberal one, and I'm not pretending otherwise.

But in both cases, multiculturalism shouldn't mean a one-way street where only the migrant's culture is expected to remain untouched and is treated as a holy thing while the host culture is expected to bend indefinitely until it, too, warps into something it never was. If you've chosen to build a life somewhere, the society you've moved to should welcome you in, but you should also be expected to actually become part of it. We shouldn't have to walk around on eggshells when we say that people should integrate, this should be the expectation for anyone looking to form a permanent life in a country they live in.

Refugees are a different case, since they didn't choose displacement, but even there once return is no longer realistic and a person has built a long-term life in the host country, the same logic on integration eventually applies to them as well even if the urgency and framing should differ from voluntary migration.

On a side note (and this is more of my own personal problem), I'd rather not see any kind of Sharia-like culture anywhere near me ever again, that crap is stone-age level bullshit that deserves to go extinct forever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5lZPWNFizQ

Of course after his admission modern Objectivists began to predictably denounce Greenspan (Ayn Rand's favorite boy) with various "No True Scotsman" arguments.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48704714

Source

https://x.com/AllardKlipp/status/2060109271635771457

When I looked into this party when news broke a few days ago, I was surprised to find that the English article was comparatively longer and included the more appalling statements. Seems worrying that their narrative on the native version appears to be working

Does this apply to immigrants?

Immigration being positive is not taken as an axiom, it is backed by studies [1,2,3,4]. Facts over feelings is truly dead on the right.

If you look at the history of crime, we are living in the safest times [5]. The "homogenous countries" started 2 world wars, one of them to "preserve their culture, ethnicities, identities". Would this not support the worldview that immigration has net benefits?

Also, can you explain how ethnic cleansing preserves culture and identities?

[1] https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/legacy-briefs/2016-01-...

[2] https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w12497/w124...

[3] https://econpapers.repec.org/article/eeelabeco/v_3a29_3ay_3a...

[4] https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annur...

[5] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/147737081454117...

>The "homogenous countries" started 2 world wars, one of them to "preserve their culture, ethnicities, identities". Would this not support the worldview that immigration has net benefits?

Oversimplification to the point of bad faith

>Also, can you explain how ethnic cleansing preserves culture and identities?

Obviously a disingenuous question

A few studies have shown that immigrants have a lower incidence of crime, especially undocumented ones. I don't know of any reputable studies (in the US) that show otherwise.

In the USA, where I live, there is not much of an ethical or cultural defense to prevent immigration. The dominant culture, white people, are themselves immigrants. To deny others the right to live and work here is selfish at best. If some people are allowed here and some people are not, the only logically coherent next step is to return all land and resources back to Native American hands. If we do not have the stomach for such a bold transition, then the next best thing is to welcome everyone. To do otherwise means allowing and denying people a life here on extremely arbitrary, hypocritical reasons (and usually racist reasons, frankly). So, at least in the USA (and I believe more broadly, North and South America), the political Left must necessarily be pro-immigration if they wish to be anti-racist.

Speaking even more broadly, Leftists have generally be in favor of internationalist cooperation (a la the famous song The Internationale). But how exactly that relates to immigration policies is debatable.

The USA, which is often touted as a "successful" melting pot model, is rife with similar problems.

Many of us love living in multicultural societies and will fight to protect our neighbors and our way of life.

Will you be on the side of the muslim terrorists who beheaded teachers and priests (among others), and killed 132 concert-goers (and injured 413 others) at the Bataclan in 2015? Will you tell the french people who were slaughtered that it was the price to live in a multicultural society?Damn.

Even if you don't go as far as terrorism, it's simple: multi-ethnic societies favor either identity politics (aka clientelism) or authoritarianism (only way to avoid it). The USA is a great example for this: the previous administration played identity politics to the maximum, and the new one used it to impose authoritarianism. It's very hard, if not impossible to escape this loop once you are in a minority-only society.

And of course you have to deal with collapsing social trust. The USA isn't the ultimate lawyer society, and the most armed one by pure chance. It's a logical consequence.

I'll be on the side of my nice Muslim neighbors (who did nothing wrong to anyone) against the red-faced white supremacist mobs. It is very obviously the correct moral position and will be viewed as such by our descendants.

In the US, the most heavily armed communities also tend to be the least diverse. It is largely a consequence of insular paranoia and hatred stoked by right-wing media.

They share the same religion and ethnicity. French muslims were actually a large contingent in Daesh forces. This is a classic "no true scotsman" fallacy. Every muslim will tell you that the Charlie Hebdo covers about Muhammad were "haram" - because that's exactly what their religion says.

Not that they are all bad people, just like you had nice soviets, or I'm sure that there a nice North Korean Juche party members, too.

You seem to be acting like an ostrich, putting your head in the sand to avoid problems. Face reality and read about Islam, which is inherently a political religion. Read also about the Muslim Brotherhood (or similar orgs).

> US armed communities.

How about latino gangs? Are they operating with nerf guns? Besides, the safest places in the US are those that are monoethnic, such as New Hampshire.

A large country with 10% of Muslims being a large minority in a small terrorist force is not surprising. I would bet that Americans and foreigners in general are a large minority in Canadian far-right groups, for example.

The drawings of Muhammad were objectively haram, as you say, but almost none of the people who'd agree to that would also agree that murder was the right answer.

You can be anti-immigration without descending into racism and Islamophobia, actually it would greatly reinforce your points.

Yet there are no country with a majority of muslims where the minorities were not pushed out in the 20th and 21st century. Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Irak, Iran, and so on. Have you read the Quran?

If course, I guess that Iran mullahs and their supporters are not representative of Islam. Not are Talibans (widely supported). Nor are Daesh. Nor are Saudis (who pushed salafism). Nor are Hamas members. Nor ar Al-Qaida. Nor are Boko Haram. Nor are Philippinos islamic groups (>400 deaths between 2000 and 2007). Nor are Jemaah Islamiyah. C'mon this is ridiculous.

I grew up in beautiful and prosperous village in the Alps, the town next to us had a mosque that sent jihadists to Syria. I guess they were not real muslims?

> A large country with 10% of Muslims being a large minority in a small terrorist force is not surprising.

There are many Portuguese in France, you don't hear about the behadings by Portuguese people. Same with Italians, Germans, Spaniards, and so on.

> The drawings of Muhammad were objectively haram, as you say, but almost none of the people who'd agree to that would also agree that murder was the right answer.

A teacher was beheaded 10 years after because he showed them in class. "Almost none" is doing a lot of work here. If that was true, every year teachers would show it as a way to discuss about religion and french laicity. But they don't because they know that there is a real risk to get a terrorist attack.

And everywhere in Europe it's the same. Theo Von Gogh was murdered for the same reason in 2004. Recently a guy burning a Quran in Sweden got stabbed by a bystander in the street. At which point are we allowed to say "enough"? It's obvious how it will end, in France for instance left-wing islamists open talk about taking power. Even after all of those bloody crimes.

All the same stuff was said about Jews in pre-Nazi Germany. It's always bullshit. Neither Muslims, nor Jews, nor white people, nor any broad group of people ever acts as a united bloc. Again: most people just want to live in peace and ensure a good future for their children.

Violent white supremacism is a symptom of multiethnic societies. There is no reason to be one otherwise.

> Neither Muslims, nor Jews, nor white people, nor any broad group of people ever acts as a united bloc.

You don't understand. Quran says that you have to convert everyone to Islamic faith (and chariah law), and use force if necessary. It is forbidden to try to interpret what is written : the text is sacred.

This is why you have islamic terrorism in every muslim country, and countries with a large minority of muslims. White people in Thailand and other countries don't commit domestic terrorism because they don't have a proper reason to and do not share a common ideology or religion.

> Again: most people just want to live in peace and ensure a good future for their children.

Big fallacy here. I open a box of chocolate, and poison 10% of them. Then you have to eat 5 of them. Would you do it? After all, most are totally safe, I don't see why you are being such a bigot!

Overall the solution is simple: muslims can have their own countries where they can do what they want, and other people can have their own countries with their own rules. It's hardly painful for anyone. I don't see why we should absolutely mix everyone everywhere.

Hey, remember the Crusades? This is not unique to Islam. Any religion can be made into a tool of peace or a tool of war. Wicked leaders will interpret their sacred texts however needed to further their political goals.

"Violent white supremacism is a symptom of multiethnic societies."

All modern societies are multiethnic societies. Once white supremacy is done with the obviously foreign-looking people, it will start to eliminate those who are not white enough, resulting in an existential and violent battle over determination of the "volk". As a descendant of white immigrants whose ancestors would not have been considered fully white in my country, I would not want to live in this environment. No doubt that I would be on the chopping block at some point for not sharing x% blood with some arbitrary progenitor.

"Overall the solution is simple: muslims can have their own countries where they can do what they want, and other people can have their own countries with their own rules."

Well, as a white person in a historically white country, I say Muslims are welcome to be my neighbors, and anyone who disagrees can go pound sand.

> All modern societies are multiethnic societies.

No? Most European societies weren't multiethnic 50 years ago. Poland doesn't have Islamic terrorism, because it has very few muslims. Guess we found the solution for avoiding Islamic terrorism?

> Once white supremacy is done with the obviously foreign-looking people, it will start to eliminate those who are not white enough, resulting in an existential and violent battle over determination of the "volk".

You are using an American definition here. In Europe you don't have "white" people, but French, Germans, Swedish and so on. White people are not inherently bad and what you describe applies better to muslims who have genocided or expelled non-muslim minorities of their countries. See Armenians for instance, or Christians. Or Jews. Or Yezidis. And so on.

"white person in a historically white country" and what happens when you are a minority and you are asked to pay the Jizya? Will you pay? Will you veil your daughter?

I prefer to keep living without this quivering fear of my neighbor and will continue to vote for multiculturalism. See you at the polls.

Cite your peer reviewed sources.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dictator%27s_Handbook

If you want me to be more precise, I would say that clientelism and tribalism are especially rewarded for politicians in a multi-ethnic society.

Also a good definition: https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/clientelism/E23ABE88...

Ouch. If someone said that about a book I'd written, I would simply move to a forest and never write a single word again. Quite the damning review.

https://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/2425/The-Logic-of-Pol...

And there is nothing wrong with vulgarization, aside from comments from pedantic HNers.

My comment wasn't about vulgarisation - it was about Freakonomics' loose approach to rigour and consequent debunking of, IIRC, most of the book.

A quick search for "Bruce Bueno de Mesquita" throws up similar debunkings[0] and yeah, I'll not be reading his books after seeing how grandiose his claims are compared with the actuality of what happened.

[0] Including one which recommends Dan Ariely - somewhat awkward nowadays.

This sentiment is just so utterly foreign to me that I can't comprehend how someone could rationally think this way. I mean, I'm a black man whose ancestors have lived in America since the slave ships, and I easily recognize that some people are more American than others. And Americans only have like 1% of the cultural and ethnic identity that most European nations have. Why are you blind to the importance of the deep historical roots that bind a nation together? Why do you think the very force (namely kinship ties) that has driven humanity forward for the last hundred thousand years has, in the blink of an eye, become irrelevant?

Also, I'm kind of surprised that you believe these things as a black man. You do realize that a large percentage of the country doesn't consider you "true" American either, right? They can't kick you out, but they will do everything in their power to disenfranchise you and turn you into second-class citizens. The signaling could not be any more clear.

For someone who is so befuddled by the idea of being unbothered by a heterogeneous culture, you don't make any convincing argument against it. Why are you complaining about leftists who see immigration as inherently "good" if you can't even explain why it's bad? If it's so obviously bad, surely you can outline what will tangibly happen?

> I'm a black man whose ancestors have lived in America since the slave ships, and I easily recognize that some people are more American than others

If it's so easy to recognize, then what is it? What makes you American, and what makes you not American enough to be worthy of deportation? You aren't "easily recognizing" anything, you are having a feeling about people different from you and trying to rationalize it afterwards.

There is an obvious argument for immigration as an inherent good. It brings business, it brings talented specialists, it brings new ideas, it brings a bigger market. We are one of the most powerful countries on earth. If immigration was so obviously bad, do you think a nation of immigrants would be able to get to this point? Culture is our main export. We are a cultural powerhouse. We are envied by other countries for our soft power. That's what the Riyadh comedy festival was about. We are strong arguably because we are such a melting pot, and we have a rich cultural tapestry. Black culture exists specifically because people didn't assimilate to white culture, and it's fascinating to enough people that Koreans halfway across the world are emulating it.

The idea that we suddenly have a homogeneous "way to act" that is easily identifiable, and we need to deport people that don't act that way, is farcical and stupidly self-defeating. It's also laughably overconfident for a country that can't make cars or keep employed, tax paying citizens from drowning in medical debt. We should probably play to our strengths, not self-sabotage.

And why are so many people still talking and being unhappy about race and ethnicity if that's a total success?

Having a good cultural distribution channel doesn't mean that it's inherently good. Japan has a great cultural soft power too, however I don't know if many people would tolerate life in Japan (for real). On the other side most people can't locate Denmark on a map but would love the life there.

I think you'll find that's a particularly American problem - the UK, for example, is a nation of immigrants and we have basically zero guns (compared to the US.)

> And why are so many people still talking and being unhappy about race and ethnicity if that's a total success?

Because they have been told that immigrants are bad, that immigrants take their jobs, that immigrants sponge off the state[0], that immigrants are eating their pets, etc. All easily fact-checked and debunked but people, alas, are easily lead by media-driven bigotry.[1]

[0] Schrodinger's Immigrants: simultaneously taking your jobs whilst also sponging off the state.

[1] Now this we -do- have in the UK, largely from the same Murdochian sources.

> Because they have been told that immigrants are bad, that immigrants take their jobs, that immigrants sponge off the state[0], that immigrants are eating their pets, etc. All easily fact-checked and debunked but people, alas, are easily lead by media-driven bigotry.[1]

The fact that it applies too to black people, who are not really immigrants show that your argument is false. Besides, your point 1) is easy to refute, as the State can subsidize migrants to allow them to accept lower wages than the natives. By giving them free housing, for instance.

How many british girls will need to be raped so that you will start to see the reality? The only biggot here is you, along with the ones who allowed Henry Nowak's murder to happen. You are just an enabler for the british elite, who hates its native proles and has no problem replacing them with more obedient ones.

> And why are so many people still talking and being unhappy about race and ethnicity if that's a total success?

Because people who are citizens are being shipped to Texas even with their papers? A friend of mine was called the N word to his face by an ICE agent. Why would the existence of racism in the U.S. be evidence that immigration is bad? That's evidence that some people are racist and will blame all their problems on people that don't look like them. Nobody is denying that.

> Japan has a great cultural soft power too, however I don't know if many people would tolerate life in Japan

That supports what I said. They are a famously homogeneous culture that is difficult to live in, but still draws admirers through soft power. If you care about the values of your culture, it would behoove you to be seen favorably, and not run by fickle children who think 5% of the population is responsible for all their problems.

Like any other country. And "white Americans" are right to be somewhat cautious, USA is a dangerous country indeed.

> Because people who are citizens are being shipped to Texas even with their papers?

DEI and so on predate Trump and the current ICE behavior. A lot of American culture revolves around racism, not just white-on-others. It mainly appears that everyone is racist (or, "race-realist") against other ethnicities. Even "I don't see race" types of behaviors are denounced by activists[0].

As an external observer, it seems always bizarre to me that Americans are so upset at the "n" word (it's not even allowed to SAY what it is! Unlike other four letter words which are used profusely), while black music is full of it and black people use the word to call each other out.

> If you care about the values of your culture, it would behoove you to be seen favorably, and not run by fickle children who think 5% of the population is responsible for all their problems.

What if the values of your culture are what makes your society fail? South Africa is a good example of rosy-glasses rainbow socialism gone very wrong. Maybe the Europeans and the Zulu should have stayed appart? Non withstanding the Indians who stole 30% of the GDP. [1]

[0] for instance: https://ideas.ted.com/why-saying-i-dont-see-race-at-all-just...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gupta_family

This is just a bad faith misrepresentation of the context. Note the context of the OP is Swedish nationalism.

> You aren't "easily recognizing" anything, you are having a feeling about people different from you and trying to rationalize it afterwards.

It's not really that hard. Some traits off the top of my head: speaks English, values meritocracy and the rule of law, individualist over collectivist, ecumenical/egalitarian over sectarian, culturally Christian or downstream of it.

> If immigration was so obviously bad, do you think a nation of immigrants would be able to get to this point?

This point only makes sense if you assume immigrants are an undifferentiated lump. But of course this isn't true.

> Some traits off the top of my head: speaks English, values meritocracy and the rule of law, individualist over collectivist, ecumenical/egalitarian over sectarian, culturally Christian or downstream of it.

Lol. Assuming you are talking about America, because that is what I referenced, this is ridiculous. You do not need to be Christian or believe in the rule of law to be American. Just look at the president. You are American if you are here. Quit being a shill for propaganda.

> This point only makes sense if you assume immigrants are an undifferentiated lump. But of course this isn't true.

No it doesn't. Not when you're arguing for a homogeneous culture.

A comically bad faith reading of what I said. Clearly no point in engaging.

I'm not sure that is correct. Before Trump, "left" politicians (in the U.S.) campaigned on controlling immigration and deporting illegal immigrants.

I think you know that, and that you are alluding to that with quotation marks. But I'm not sure how the person you are replying to is using the term "left." I feel it is important to clarify when discussing how the Left views immigration.

Clarification aside, I agree with what you said.

Mullvad has two owners, founders, and CEOs - Daniel Berntsson, and me, Fredrik Strömberg. All posts I've seen yesterday and today, including the newspaper articles, talk about Mullvad as if Daniel is the single owner, founder and CEO. It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns you're welcome to comment on this thread, or email our customer support.

See below for the response you'll get from support:

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Mullvad is a political company. We fight for freedom of speech, freedom of information and the right to privacy. These are firmly held values of the founders of Mullvad.

Mullvad protects the right for people to express things we don't agree with. We protect the right of everyone to access views we don't agree with.

We also live these values by being tolerant in our daily work. Everyone is welcome to collaborate with Mullvad if they share these narrow core values. As employees, contractors, customers, suppliers, lobbyists, campaign partners or whatever it might be. No matter what their other opinions are and no matter whether the founders or anyone else in Mullvad dislike them. The founders themselves fundamentally disagree on several important issues.

This is what allows us to advance our common causes. Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment is also liberating and promotes truth seeking.

The more people do this, the better a place the world will be.

It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission, in the same way that someone's opinions on animal rights, taxes or public healthcare policy isn't.

That said, if you no longer want to be a Mullvad customer for philosophical reasons, we think it's important to honor that. In that case, reach out to support.

> It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission.

It should be obvious that what people are concerned is their money being used to support these political causes, whether it was done in a way that keeps the company out of it or not is besides the point. Daniel, of course, is free to choose what to do with his money. I am, too, and based on this I will be making a choice to not spend any more money on Mullvad subscriptions. Nothing personal, and it's a shame because I have nothing but praise for the technical side of it. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

I have to say, this is a disappointing message. The thing about intolerant movements is that tolerance doesn't fix them, it makes them worse and lets them accumulate power until they can destroy the tolerant.

I'd recommend reading Karl Popper and his Paradox of Tolerance, which he formulated after seeing this exact thing play out in his native Austria with the rise of the Nazis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

It is a very specific ideology responsible for the worst atrocities in history that needs to be ruthlessly stomped out as soon as it rears its ugly head again.

This isn't about opinions or tolerance. It's about preventing crimes against humanity.

No. that's exactly not what is said.

it only is applicable to organisations and people who very clearly express not only some disagreement, but their intolerance and their plan and intent to enforce suppression of dissent once in power. and then suppression of whatever they are intolerant of.

and the far right very clearly announces that they will "eradicate" and "put to their (lower) place" whatever. immigrants. homosexuals. transgender humans. wom(b)en.

if you tolerate _that_, even pay for it, in times of ai boosted slander, you get queers in prisons, pregnant teenagers, and a few much richer very rich people.

-- Joseph Goebbels, 1935

The whole point is that fascist movements will abuse your tolerance to build themselves up to a position where they can take it away from you. The only answer is to not tolerate the intolerant.

I come from a country that was devastated by fascists like the ones the Mullvad founder funds and history taught us anything but opposition is collaboration.

Go ask the millions of people murdered in concentration camps how tolerating Nazi ideas worked out for them.

I’m a long time Mullvad customer, likely paid Mullvad upward of 400€ in the past number of years, as well as recommended it to friends and family members.

What you seem to be missing in your comment, is that some of that money I paid, found its way to support an organisation that has extreme racist views.

I’ve reached out to support and requested a refund of my outstanding credit.

I’ll be moving on.

Geez, I hope you do not pay give any money to Google, Microsoft and such. They have many employees and I am sure some of them donate to causes you would disagree with using (part of) the money you gave to those companies.

And, I have to wonder, do you vet your local bakery as well on how they use their money?

Anyway, yes, I do judge you if you publicly and loudly declaim small to medium sized businesses that work really hard for your privacy while handing out money to megacorps who are directly involved in tightening the global surveillance net.

Yes? I have been divesting from big tech. Not only do I feel good about it but the side effects have been positive too.

I'll happily keep on listening to radical left punk, RAC/rock against Communism as well as anti fascist and NS Black Metal as long as the music moves me.

I can't go around judging all day. Wherever I spend money, I'll probably disagree with 99% of what the people at the receiving end will do with it.

For example, I certainly boycott anything to do with Elon Musk, for the same kinds of reasons.

You seem to be falling into the "perfect is the enemy of the good" trap. It's not possibly to perfectly boycott every person and organization that deserves to be sanctioned, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it where it is possible.

So lets only boycott small and inconsequential companies like Mullvad that are easily replaceable. However not companies like Apple, Intel or Nvidia etc. whose CEOs have expressed their personal admiration of Trump and supported him financially because it would not be very convenient?

To be fair that seems to be reasonably rational i.e. anthropomorphising lawnmowers is a fool’s errand while its feasible to actually make a difference in cases like this

I know that I'm an outlier but that doesn't matter to me. People can express their own moral (or immoral) choices, I can't control that. But don't tell me there's nothing you can do.

People keep saying these things and I simply don't understand this at all. For sure some of my money goes to things I don't want to support, but for the money I can control and know where it's going without doing active research (though that approach can be also used), and even if it's just what I get as info through newspapers, forums and news sites, it absolutely shouldn't get people who I think of a re extreme rascist (regardless of whether this applies in this specific case).

If I found out that my local bakery was funding regressive far-right politics, I absolutely would stop going to that bakery.

These are silly questions with easy answers if you have basic moral standards. By mocking people for having standards, you just reveal you lack them yourself.

But Mullvad isn't the government. I can get a VPN from somewhere else. I can opt out of funding something that I consider morally abhorrent.

What you seem to be missing is that every single € you've spent on virtually anything in the past number of years, some of it has found its way to support organisations that have extreme racist views.

how so?

Karl Popper said, "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."

>> the same way that someone's opinions on animal rights, taxes or public healthcare ...

We're not talking about reasonable people disagreeing about tax policy, we're talking about free expression, the entire purpose of Mullvad.

When you make a large donation to a political party whose most fundamental policy is restricting the free expression of people, that is wholly incompatible with everything Mullvad says they stand for.

When a founder and executive with influence over Mullvad policy and operations is exposed actively and financially support restricting free expression of people, it's not "tolerant" to pretend that's somehow compatible with the mission and brand of the company.

I don’t support remigration, but calling immigration “the free expression of people” is a stretch. It’s orthogonal.

You can argue that remigration isn’t protecting the privacy of those who are surveilled by the government or deported to repressive countries that surveil their population. But Mullvad’s product protects even those people (it must, because it hides the identity of who’s using it from itself).

Their polices focus on the way people dress, the languages they speak in public, the institutions and schools they build, the traditions they practice.

People would be forced to self-censor their speech, their beliefs, and their behavior.

It's not a "stretch". It's the whole program.

Do you have sources and quotes for this? Wikipedia only says “remigration”, although another comment mentioned that the translated Swedish word implies “assimilation”. Trying to restrict what people (even immigrants) do goes against free expression: deporting those based on ethnicity is immoral for other reasons but does not.

I don't know enough of Swedish politics or social issues to determine which one is the more correct characterization of the party, but even that is a serious difference in policy.

Far right political parties have a marked tendency to severely restrict freedom of expression once they’re in power. They routinely call for it when they’re the underdogs, but that often changes fairly quickly once they get their way.

In some cases you can see hints of that before they came into power. In France for instance, our main far right party (Rassemblement National) supports drastic budget cuts to state-financed media, and I believe a more direct control of said media from executive power.

One would have to check whether the Swedish Örebro party is similar of course. I personally no absolutely nothing about that party. Still, it is not a stretch for me to strongly suspect that a party that calls for deportation (let’s call it what it is, okay?) is also a party that is, or at the very least will be, against freedom of expression and freedom of information.

If it is, then Mullvad’s co-founder has a serious conflict of interest, and I would have no choice but seriously lower my confidence in their VPN.

I hope their sister company, Tillitis, is mostly free of such. Though even if it too is tainted, their TKey is fully open source (schematics and all if I recall correctly), and simple enough to be independently audited. They even have an unlocked version you can burn yourself so you don’t even have to trust their provisioning process. That’s the difference with a VPN: a VPN is like a Palantir, you kinda have to trust Sauron will do right by you. The TKey is more like Nemik’s astro-navigator: the user can verify themselves they are its sole master, once they did they can trust it even if it was manufactured by the Empire itself.

I mean, I love my TKey. I don’t care if Elon Musk and Peter Thiel themselves oversaw its manufacture, now it’s mine, and there’s no way I’m letting the enemy have exclusivity over it.

I actually agree that many far-right parties seem to restrict freedom of expression when they have majority power, but so do many far-left parties. Far-right may be generally statistically worse, but again, this says nothing about Örebro specifically who aren’t typical.

Sure, Örebro is not typical, and may indeed be an exception.

But.

This apparent racism remains cogent evidence that they are also against freedom of expression — even if perhaps not openly. Also, I have yet to know of one political party who sincerely advocates for both deportation and freedom of expression.

What does defunding state-funded media (aka propaganda) have to do with the freedom of expression?

You familiar with separation of power? Like Judges being funded by the state, and yet, somehow able to stay independent? Shocking, I know. Here’s even more shocking: media are like that too.

I mean, okay, they aren’t always. In France for instance they fluctuated from straight up propaganda tool, to very independent, and now back to being less independent. Unfortunately it’s not being recognised as a fourth power, worth cleanly separating from the other organs of the state (executive, legislative, judiciary). Still, the separation is there to some degree.

Anyway, freedom of expression.

The practical effect of stopping state funding of media, simply means all we’d have left as mainstream media goes, are those owned by a tiny number of very rich people. And the overwhelming majority are either neoliberal, or pretty far to the right — some squarely fall into the far right. Precisely the kind of propaganda tool you seem to expect from the state, only even more pronounced. Oh sure you’re "free" to express leftist ideas. On your tiny YouTube channel. Nobody is going to listen to you from their TV or their radio.

Kinda suits the far right parties, doesn’t it?

We speak of freedom of expression, but really that is taking it from the wrong end. What we really need is freedom of information, that is, actual, practical access to a broad enough range of ideas. And with curation too. Stupid stuff like Flat Earth should be relegated to the rank of cute entertainment. Dangerously false stuff like climate change denialism should be mostly ignored by recommendation algorithm, and moderated away from any kind of mass media. Hate speech, like, "trans 'people' are abominations that deserve a bullet in the head, let’s grab our AR-15", should be prosecuted.

Anyway, what is said is much less important than what is heard, and to what extent. We can keep a nominal freedom of expression all right, but it doesn’t matter if all people hear all day is pro-genocide, pro-billionaire, anti-regulation, anti-queer, and anti-science.

---

A note on vocabulary: it’s kinda hard to communicate how things work here in parts of the EU, because you just don’t have the word. I want to talk about publicly owned media, as in owned by the people, but this clashes with "public company", which means owned by shareholders.

So I have to resort to "state funded", except now you think it means "state controlled", because of course if you fund something you control it… except no, see judges, and the funding doesn’t even have to go through the state — or at least, not the executive branch.

It’s like explaining someone who’s just been told all their life that the sun rises from the East and sets to the West, means something different now than what it meant 2 thousand years ago. It doesn’t fit in a simple comment.

that seems schizophrenic. either state funded media can be abused and there should be none of it, or we find a way to prevent abuse, but then that should also work for the press.

even more so as nowadays press is also digital and there is really no difference between a website from a newspaper and a website from other news media. but one can't be state funded, but the other can.

Well, now they do to some extent, and that’s a problem, because for retirement for instance, they apparently refusing to even think of raising the rates even a little bit, and few discuss ways to raise the salaries themselves. All they can think of is making us work later, which doesn’t work because whatever pressure you relieve from the retirement funds, goes straight to the unemployment fund. Oh wait, there’s a solution: kick people out of unemployment insurance.

Anyway, something like that could be devoted to various media. I believe it would work best if it was done through an independent organisation (or federation thereof, we still want local media). And of course we want that organisation to be democratic, but I haven’t thought through the details where the devil lies.

---

Note: I spoke of the independence of judges above, but if I recall correctly, in France we have much fewer of them than in Germany (per capita). They are overworked, justice takes ages to be served, and there are signs that it is on purpose. I suspect one reason is it allows the executive branch to set the priorities for the justice system, undermining its independence at a deep level.

I'm not Swedish, so it's possible there's something that I am missing. But skimming the wikipedia page for the party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party#), I don't see anything that says the party is pro censorship.

But if they promise to target specific groups of people to close their schools, regulate how they dress, ban their prayers, and suppress their art, it's all about restricting their freedom of expression.

That's the whole program.

There are plenty of political parties that proudly claim to oppose "hate speech".

> But if they promise to target specific groups of people to close their schools, regulate how they dress, ban their prayers, and suppress their art, it's all about restricting their freedom of expression.

I could be wrong, but it looks like their plan is to cut public funding, not to censor those things.

does that fight against "intolerant" also include fighting people from other culture that are systematically and religiously opposed against your current society and its tolerance and will undermine it within the next couple decades by reproducing more? nvm im aware asking for self awareness is too much.

Where can I read more about how this is the fundamental policy of the Örebro party?

I think the real issue is this: "The party is heavily opposed to political corruption and high politician incomes and wants to reduce the wages of politicians and senior officials." (from Wikipedia, among other sources.)

From Wikipedia:

> Some of its key issues include lowered wages for politicians, ending the tax payer funding of various sculptures, monuments and art, large scale remigration, a stricter immigration policy, and free dental care.

I think most criticism of this party is probably around "large scale remigration" and "stricter immigration policy", which are often nice ways to word "getting rid of everyone that doesn't look like us".

But if you want to play this little game, I can play too. Personally I think the real issue people have with this platform is the free dental care. Big tooth obviously doesn't want to lose profit.

Is it? They appear to be some sort of hardcore pseudo libertarians with some nationalistic vibes. To an extent that seems to overlap with Mullvad’s declared value?

yeah i'm sick and tired of hearing this, because it gets applied very asymmetrically.

we routinely tolerate certain kinds of intolerants and silence other, and that sucks.

case in point: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/17/hamtramck-mi...

people happily tolerate lgbt-intollerant people, afraid of being called islamophobic and/or intollerant, and but we do not tollerate at all people that have been calling that risk out for years.

so yeah, popper's writings are being grossly misused, and i'm sick and tired of seeing that come out in every discussion on these topics.

---

Also: if only mullvad is taking that kind of political stance (no-log vpn etc)... maybe you should think twice about who is actually on your side.

It's weird he said that, given that at the time there were many examples of intolerant societies that had become increasingly tolerant. So the statement is factually incorrect, and, given how educated he was, he knew this. In other words, the statement is a lie. But very useful if you manage to put yourself in the position of being the one to define what is intolerant, and which things are so important to tolerate that they should be beyond democratic decision-making.

That said, I don't disagree that private donations can be incompatible with (or more accurately, counter-productive to) the stated mission of a company. And it's not unreasonable for journalists to report on it, on the logic it may affect consumer choices. But I'm not familiar with Örebro, and nothing in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party#Policies indicates they're against online anonymity or free expression. But maybe I missed something?

The big problem with discriminating against other people you disagree with is that you have to be right, or you are the bigot (doubly so!).

Just consider boycotting someone like Turing for being gay a century ago. That is a double self own with hindsight, that a lot of people (back then) could have been baited into.

So I'm advocating for not boycotting peoples careers until you are absolutely sure (even then you might be wrong!).

Also consider: How much social progress did we actually achieve with witch hunts? Would you really be comfortable crediting those with the repeal of Jim Crow laws? And how often, on the other hand, did they end up in a Salem-situation?

I cannot speak for Daniel. I know there are some policies he likes and there are things he doesn’t like. Personally I am not a fan.

This morning Daniel explained his rationale to most of the company. Speaking for myself, I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues. Speaking as the co-CEO of Mullvad, we will continue to protect the universal right to privacy. People should feel safe using Mullvad regardless of their political affiliation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipope

Classic

I'd love to see you proving this claim as I believe that's not what the party stands for.

Seems like there isn't a lot of substance around the nightmare deportation scenarios some seem to believe in.

Supposed evidence: "It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission."

But the second quote has nothing to do with the accusation. He never said that he was against people examining the politics of the people running the company. Not even hinting at it.

This hasn't anything to do with you, but I also notice that people are flagging and [dead]ing completely reasonable comments in this thread, making any kind of decent conversation quite hard. What is the point of being in a comment thread, if we figuratively "kill" every person who doesn't follow only one allowed view. Are hackers doing this because they are the same type of persons who would literally kill people with differing views if they had such opportunity and power?

Maybe you should tell that to your cofounder? His actions certainly don't reflect this. Promoting ethnic cleansing is the opposite of this.

Do you have a source for this? I haven't seen this mentioned elsewhere.

Personally I'm not going to not continue to pay for Mullvad any longer. I've never been super squeamish when it comes to disagreements about policy but when you're unironically starting to sound like the NSDAP I'm out.

> In 2026 ÖP party leader Markus Allard sparked controversy on several occasions. In a debate hosted by Studio3 with Liberal member of parliament Martin Melin, Allard asked: "why won't the Liberals push for deporting 100 000 social welfare-Somalis?" and in the same debate said that "Sweden belongs to the Swedes. We have to make sure that we take care of our own damn people and we must deport these damn parasites who sit and live at our expense." [57]

> In a podcast segment about immigration and deportations Allard stated his opinion and said that "They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish."

(Don't think we don't notice you using a phrase that has a meaning that includes genocide, btw, to really whip people up)

What a dismissive way to treat your customer. Basically the equivalent of someone on the American right saying “if you don’t like it you can get the hell out”, which tracks given Mullvad’s party of choice.

Edit: Downvote me all you want but it doesn’t change the fact that ethnic cleansing is wrong and by definition counter to free speech and human rights in general.

What would you like them to do? Roll over on the co-CEO and throw him under the bus, signaling to everyone that there is a “correct” point of view to have that Mullvad as a company is going to push and promote?

Individuals should be allowed to think and do what they want as an individual, as long as it isn’t compromising the company. The fact that they have 2 CEOs with differing political views seems like a healthy thing.

Freedom of speech is a political view that shouldn’t be tied to any one party.

Now some of these problems could be solved, but there's a legitimate argument that the policy causes more problems than it solves.

They already do that.

It's not though. More immigrants mean more people buying products, paying taxes on them, supporting local business, more people contributing to the economy in general. Another important factor is that most european populations are aging, meaning that the ratio of working people versus older people who stopped working, is reaching unsustainable levels. Without migrants, our economies will be seriously hampered.

I agree that immigration is important and even giving chances to people that are willing to completely assimilate, change culture and loyalty to the said country to eventually after XX years to become a citizen, but starting by saying f*ck your laws before even arriving is just blatant disrespect.

Illegal immigrants are not paying social contributions because the can't be hired legally, so they don't really contribute to the retirement issue, and very often, let's be real, they must resort to even more illegal schemes to get by because of restrictions having no-paper, it's hard to even get a SIM card, so even to get a phone, they'll need to commit a crime of some sort by stealing an ID.

I just don't understand how we can reach fairness which is extremely important with people that want to do the right thing and actually apply properly and assimilate.

I would assume that a company which prides itself on privacy and being immune to government overreach would not enable policies that encourage the dissolution of privacy and government overreach. But ultimately I know folks don't care about privacy as long as it targets people with certain colors of skin, ignoring that they get caught in the net as well. That's really what the arguments against in this thread boil down to.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1325

https://elaw.klri.re.kr/eng_mobile/viewer.do?hseq=61640&type...

You can find similar laws for the majority of other first-world countries too.

If anything, respecting an employee's personal life privacy seems fairly in-line with the values one would want in a privacy-focused VPN company.

Like, I agree with and support their politics, but that doesn't make something politically neutral.

"I'm surprised the co-founder of a freedom of speech company is contributing to a political party that wants to force religious charter schools to close."

I don't think anyone gives a sh*t about skin color, but of course it's legitimate to care about cultural background and education, not wanting uneducated people with vastly different culture that doesn't align with the host country is a valid stance and it makes sense to maintain proper equilibrium in the said country.

I'm sorry to hear that. We didn't mean to come across as dismissive. We're simply saying that if you disagree with our stance on the matter, you are welcome to reach out to support, and they can hopefully sort out a refund.

> Mullvad’s party of choice

Daniel, not Mullvad.

(aftbit already mentioned this link downthread but perhaps it's helpful to say this explicitly.)

Edit: actually I should probably pin that to the top. Done now. Sorry for the confusion!

Unless you happen to be of Somalian descent in Sweden. Then you should be ripped away from the only home you've ever known, indeed possibly the only country you've ever been in, and sent to a foreign country you have no citizenship in, where you have no home, don't understand the language, know no one, and be forced to try and survive.

Seriously? It's not like the Somalis have been in Sweden that long.

Somalis are usually not spread out among the natives. They tend to clump together in ethnic enclaves where it is very easy to learn Somali (and where life is unpleasant for the unfortunate child who doesn't learn it).

Surely we can agree that if such kids exist then they must be very, very few in number?

I don't believe that integration has worked well either, but it doesn't mean that I think we should "send back" people that were born here and don't have any other citizenship.

That's actually one of the biggest problems with mass migration - that all incentives go against integration into the host culture.

To add, they all retain their Somali citizenship.

I said they weren't necessarily Somali citizens. Somali citizenship when born outside the country is more complicated than that and will not be universal.

Either way legal status is just one of many reasons why this would be a horrific crime against humanity requiring prosecution by the Hague under the Rome statutes. You're still ripping an entire ethnic group away from their homes.

It does matter, Somalis are not Swedes. They don't belong in Sweden, much the same as Swedes don't belong in Somalia.

>You're still ripping an entire ethnic group away from their homes.

Sweden is not the home of Somalis.

Nope, that is what will get you taken over by the assholes. Reasonable defense is necessary in reality. There ARE bad actors, they must be kept out.

Mullvad was one of the last products I felt I could honestly recommend, and feel good about. Never falling for this garbage again. The world is complete shit right now.

Here's something worth considering: why would someone whose ideal is open borders, who has been an animal rights activist, and someone who has led Mullvad for 17 years (with the track record it has), choose to donate to this party? If you like what Daniel and I have done together over the past 17 years, and now vehemently oppose his choice to make this donation, doesn't that make you just a little bit curious?

It made me curious. It didn't change my ultimate stance, but it did temper my emotions about it.

What "moral choice" specifically was Daniel supporting?

No. I observed that they liked Mullvad and now considers it complete garbage. I shared some priors with them, suggesting that there is evidence that they haven't seen yet. This evidence didn't change my stance on the party, or Daniel's donation. It did make me understand, which is not the same as agreeing.

A political discourse which only knows 0 or 1, GOOD or BAD, Nazi or Good, is not a healthy discourse. There's almost always something to learn, if you lean into curiosity instead of just labeling things right away.

I understand that you want to defend you business and your friend, but signing up with the Nazi party means you sign up with all of it. I find it highly unlikely your cofounder was unaware of the rest of the racist and viscous rhetoric when he opened his checkbook to buy the party the equivalent of a house.

Mullvad likely makes good money, but thats not a casual "I read this one article and didn't look into it deeper" kind of donation for anyone.

There are very good (and well-documented) reasons to believe a large part of the recently immigrated foreigners in Sweden are exactly such bad actors.

Your arguments don't really work the way you seem to think they do.

No, in fact, the opposite of this is obvious.

The company’s values aren’t reflected accurately if you believe your money is funding free speech regardless of race.

A great litmus test for the (somewhat outrageous) claims in this thread: does Mullvad refuse to provide service to non-white immigrants in Sweden? If yes, then you have a point. If no, I do not think Mullvad is the entity that is confused in this situation.

If you are the co-CEO of a company, will you push it to align more with your values, or less?

This isn't a company founded 300 years ago by a long-dead evil man in a business vertical completely unrelated to how it started, it's a baby company with the evil founder still actively involved at the highest level of management. Maybe you can regale me with epic stories about the companies you've worked at where the founder had no ability to influence the company and its values, but that's not been my experience at all, in any human organization anywhere.

1. People definitely start companies with a certain set of values and behaviors (as a company) and do entirely separate things in their private life. This is trivially true.

2. I don't think the personal values and the business mission in this case are even in conflict. You can be a racist and support free speech / privacy. Indeed, I'd actually say the venn diagram of "racists" and "people who vociferously espouse free speech ideals" is more union than it is disjoint.

2. I don't think they're in conflict, either, I think the company's values are the founders' values and I think those values have been revealed to be bad.

Regardless you can always say "I don't want to give this company money because that indirectly is gonna funnel money to an anti-immigrant political party in Sweden", and that is a perfectly valid position to take. But a lot of people in this thread are clearly going a step further than that, ostensibly in an attempt to give them a greater sense of moral superiority than is necessarily deserved.

No, actually, I can say that. I just did. I'll do it again: I think Mullvad is a bad company if they have the absolute lack of morality and foresight to keep this jerk on as co-CEO, his values must and will influence the company, and they won't get another penny of my money for as long as I live.

You seem to think that my money should be spent according to your misguided and incorrect demands for rigor in my moral thinking, and that's just not how any of this works, buddy. The way it works is this: if Mullvad wants any of my money, they must prove to ME that they are not evil. The burden is entirely on them, as they want my money, not the other way around.

I was entertaining this conversation because you seemed genuinely curious about my opinion initially. I now see that you're actually trying to police my morality and tell me what is or isn't justified about how I make my own moral choices. I am no longer interested in talking to you about this.

Money has a huge influence on politics, and recognizing that reality isn't the same as wanting it or encouraging it.

I don't really object to you asking this question, but I do object to you calling a rhetorical question "an honest question".

I personally believe that a lot of those people did not think through the consequences at all: Making it acceptable/typical/common for political expression to be punished at the workplace would obviously lead to self-censorship and direct/indirect censorship by employers.

My view is that this is utterly incompatible with liberalism (but a lot of the proponents would claim to lean liberal themselves!). I have not found good counterarguments for my current view so far.

For many, it's not just an intellectual position but an emotional one. This doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, but you probably won't be able to reason them out of it. It's the same reason I don't listen to Michael Jackson. He's dead and none of that streaming revenue would go to him or to raping children but...yuck.

At the end of the day, there's an irony in this guy supporting the very freedoms on the internet which are being used to disseminate criticisms against him, and perhaps inducing people to starve one of the vehicles which helps maintain those freedoms.

The "irony" in supporting that party I believe is a stretch. I don't see how support for some neo-nationalists is inherently "anti-freedom"; would that not apply to any party arguing against open borders?

My personal belief is that professional discrimination because of political support is a very slippery slope, and I honestly think that a lot of people directly or indirectly advocating for it are not fully understanding of what this means and where that slope ends:

When asking about professional boycott for "questionable" past positions (like being gay in Turings time) I only get silence in response because people presumably realize that such witch-hunting often ends up looking really bad in retrospect.

It's like people who think Americans shouldn't shouldn't have first amendment rights. The irony is that the first amendment protects their ability to criticize the first amendment.

For better or worse, the internet and all its collective outrage is now the world's HR department.

I'm kinda confused here. The context of this is that a rich tech bro uses his money to fund and promote a political party, with our money, but we can't decide to not pay him because that's influencing money with politics (???)

What kind of bizarro world is this, he can use his vast wealth to promote racist parties but we can't collectively use ours? How about he just "does it at the booth" and donates his money to the against malaria foundation?

I'm suggesting that small political progress is simply not worth witch-hunting for. If you have political concerns, engage by voting, starting your own party or advocating for your cause instead of ruining the career of a person you disagree with.

If I'm living at the opposite side of the world and my money was indirectly influencing Swedish politics then I'm doing Sweden a service by discontinuing my payment. After all the only thing I'm doing is reduce the power of corporations in a democratic process, I literally cannot take any Swedish vote away. That's exactly what you asked for.

> If you have political concerns, engage by voting, starting your own party or advocating for your cause

I do all of that, I'm an active member of a European political party and engaged far beyond just voting. But I'm also not going to stop to make sure my money as far as I can control it does not go into the pockets of millionaires who single handedly decided to bankroll 70% of the funding of a party that runs on ethnic hate. That is money in politics. If there was no money in politics, these people wouldn't be able to spread their hate. All of these parties on our continent are funded and supported by oligarchs across the world.

My view is: its not your money that goes to a party you dislike, its Berntssons; money doesn't stink, and it's not your responsibility how some fraction of it is spent after you paid someone for a completely unrelated purpose.

You basically try to avoid a second order effect (Örebropartiet getting money) by leaning on an inherently anti-liberal mechanism (applying pressure via workplace).

You might think the end justifies the means here, but I strongly disagree; legitimizing discrimination at the workplace based on political beliefs is in my view much worse than anything that Örebropartiet could ever achieve.

You are obviously completely free to do business with whoever you want, but if you are advocating for boycott here (=> pro corporate censorship) you are directly doing more damage to liberalism in my view than some swedish local party ever could.

I'm confident in this view because I'm certain that politically motivated workplace discrimination is/was/would have been absolutely horrible for tons of people that turned out "right" (=> secularists, feminists, LGBT advocates, ...). Nothing that could be realistically achieved by such boycott appears even close to worth the trade to me.

Crucially, almost everyone ever believes his own moral compass to be "correct", but many turn out (somewhat) "wrong" decades or centuries later. So allowing more avenues to force views on others is always a risky proposition because those avenues are not just accesible to people that you believe to be "right"-- you also open them to people that you know to be wrong (i.e. rightwingers that want to get you fired for being an anti-nationalist traitor or w/e).

> This whole view kinda confounds me. I don't see how you can honestly profess to be on the tolerant/right side, morally, while trying to boycott someones business over his political views. Would you have preferred early feminists or LGBT advocates to be hounded in their professional life? Would it have been better for more people to do that?

Okay, first of all, early feminists and LGBT advocates were and are hounded in their professional lives. This has happened to progressives for all of human history, it's actively happening under the current US administration, and it's going to continue happening forever.

A bigger point here is that your argument is morally worthless. You're just saying that I shouldn't judge anyone, because other people have judged wrongly in the past. I disagree entirely. I wouldn't buy juice from a rapist, I wouldn't buy a computer from a murderer, and I wouldn't buy a VPN from a fascist.

The largest point however, is that your argument implies that I am compelled to spend my money on Mullvad regardless of what I think about the people who work there or what they do, and that's an obvious absurdity. I am free to spend or not spend on whatever I choose for whatever reasons I choose, and politics is going to be one of them. You'll have to get over it.

Political extremists are all the same, left or right, nobody should be surprised because they seek power above all else.

I had been pretty concerned about the level of advertising for Mullvad I've seen recently, that's usually a really bad sign for a VPN type company. But seeing this comment, in combination with the news article linked here, tells me everything I need to know for trust.

VPNs are all about trust. Mullvad has completely broken all trust with me.

How do you call a friend of a fascist?

If it were a small amount of money, it wouldn’t be an issue. If the politics at stake were less important, it wouldn’t be an issue.

They’re not going to stop at immigration, look at other places in the world to see the future risk.

Sorry, I was a paying and satisfied customer, and now I’m out.

As I said in another comment, speaking for myself, I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues.

[1]: https://dberntsson.info

Maybe there's a case to distance Mullvad from him, then. Not taking a stand is also a political choice.

Daniel made this decision as a private individual. Some of his colleagues (including me) dislike it as private individuals.

I recognize that the amount as well as his position of power within the company (co-founder, co-owner, co-CEO) make people who disapprove more uncomfortable than if it had been a much lower amount from a regular employee.

However, as others have argued, what would happen if Mullvad started weighing in on politics unrelated to its mission?

Better to see Mullvad almost like a force of nature: Mullvad believes privacy is a universal right. You might disagree but at least it's consistent, and I'd argue that's one path to trustworthiness - you know how we're likely to treat you as a customer. (equally, regardless of your political affiliation)

Obviously everyone is free to make their own choice on whether they like this stance or not.

I don't think you should not be allowed to have strong political opinions in such a position. I just think that in this case, it is very dangerous to express so much support for them in such a public way. I say this because (from my perspective at least) a large part of Mullvad's "competitive advantage" is their brand image, and it just feels that a link to controversial politics probably does more harm than good to this brand image.

I have several colleagues who I'm fairly certain are anarcho-syndicalists, meaning they want to abolish the state and capitalism. I don't know about my colleagues, but in general anarcho-syndicalists seek to bring about their vision through organising trade unions, and use that to seize control of the means of production and distribution. I on the other hand am clearly a capitalist pig seeking to oppress my workforce. Why else would I invite them to join me on the barricades against mass surveillance and censorship? Shared values around privacy? :P

I have no business questioning which demonstrations my colleagues participate in, or what they write on their blog. As long as they are not actively malicious against me, our workplace, or their fellow coworkers.

It's getting late, maybe I'm missing something in my description. I guess that's a rough approximation of how I feel about tolerating differences of opinion.

Any reflections on the book https://howisincorruptiblegoing.com/ ?

Again, I have no idea if any of my colleagues actually subscribe to such ideals. I was simply commenting on tolerating differences of opinion. There's also a difference between empathy/understanding and sympathy/agreement.

> You don't seem to realize how much power you, and your co-founder do have vs them.

Perhaps. I've thought about that many times. I'm pretty sure I understand it well intellectually, but I have little experience actually being an employee myself. What experience I have was almost two decades ago. I'd love to hear more about what you mean. What did I say that suggests I don't understand? Was it the "capitalist pig" joke? I was trying to inject some tongue-in-cheek humour, but waking up this morning I regret writing it, as it has little to do with the point I was trying to make. Unfortunately by then it was too old to edit. If it's something else, please tell me.

What I try to do is imagine how I would want to be treated by someone who has hard power over me, in the way an employer ultimately does over their employees. I read books and research on the subject, watch videos, listen to podcasts, learn from mentors, and I've refined my leadership philosophy over the course of the past 17 years.

I aspire to give all of my colleagues a maximum of autonomy. My approach is something like this:

1. The right person, in the right role, with the right manager. 2. Establish and refine a mutual understanding of goals, strategies, and expectations. 3. Delegate to the greatest possible extent.

The right person is roughly someone who has integrity, drive, competence and is easy to communicate with. By integrity I mean someone who admits when they are wrong and tells me when I'm wrong. Drive comes in many shapes (tech nerd, building a team, "just" a good work ethic, or simply wanting to put food on the table) - all of which are perfectly fine drives. Basically I want colleagues that care about something, anything. Competence means being able to perform their job role.

The more you have 1 and 2, the easier it is to build a mutually high-trust relationship, and a long-term collaboration with increasing autonomy.

Ultimately trust is about willingly being vulnerable to someone or something. I think that is why some of my colleagues are upset right now. They see Daniel's donation as a breach of that trust. I get that, and I feel for them.

> Any reflections on the book https://howisincorruptiblegoing.com/ ?

I haven't read it, but I've heard of it. What little I know, it sounds in line with what Daniel and I have done. Here's our ownership directive: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/ownership-and-future-mullvad-vpn

As we write in the article: """We started building this organization in the summer of 2008 for idealistic reasons, and we are still idealists who think privacy is fundamental to a civilized society.

The best strategy for achieving societal impact through entrepreneurship is consistent, long-term, and value-based ownership. For us, this disqualifies taking outside investment, either through venture capital or going public. Mullvad has instead been growing organically without outside investments. It takes longer but the results are better."""

If I understand correctly, Ries is arguing that the more valuable a company is, the more tempting it becomes to extract that value. Sure, that's why it is important to have principled and long-term shareholders. An organisation's long-term strategic behavior necessarily tries to converge on its goals, set by its shareholders. I recognize that most companies are owned by shareholders who seek to eventually increase their personal wealth. I also recognize that principles almost always get to take a back seat if they cost the shareholders too much money.

Personally I reject the U.S. 1970s corporate law doctrine that the only legitimate purpose of a company is maximizing returns to its shareholders. That's ridiculous. In the case of Mullvad its mission is related to privacy, mass surveillance and censorship, in large part because we believe privacy and the absence of mass surveillance and censorship are part of the foundation of a healthy and thriving society.

As for extracting value to benefit me personally, I don't intend to accrue more than I need. I think I've reached the point where I'm satisfied with my lifestyle and the buffer I have. I've stopped playing the stock market, and instead placed my savings in long-term investments which require a minimum of attention. I'd rather do other things with my time. Obviously I'm also confident in my future earning potential should I catastrophically lose both my company and a large portion of my savings. It is very freeing and I recognize how rare and useful it is to be able to act in line with your values without concern for economic impact. I think it allows me to make better long-term strategic decisions about our companies.

Mostly I just want to maximize my contribution to society. I've toyed with the idea of placing my shares in Mullvad and my other companies in a foundation with some kind of open-source mission. I've also reached out to various non-profits and talked to tax advisors about abstaining from dividends, and have them sent directly to those non-profits. We'll see.

I don't do this for the money anymore. I do it because it is important to me. I wonder if a lot of people commenting or trying to apply social pressure assume that we're worried about the company losing value. Of course I would be sad if colleagues or a lot of customers left us, as I care immensely about both. That doesn't mean I'm willing to betray my principles, or in this case betray Mullvad's mission.

I hope I've managed to answer most of your questions. Please tell me more about what I should do to better understand the power I have over my colleagues, as their employer. What am I missing? Thank you.

I don't mind some jokes, though, it made me think of Animal Farm, which does not fit here.

You seem to be doing a great job as an employer, already caring is better than most, which is a low bar.

I meant your political power, more than power in the employer - employee relationship. You have more political power than your employees, by a lot. You may not use it, much, until today. But the imbalance is big, as proven by recent events.

Do you have plans for what will happen with the company when you two are no longer around? The book is more about such things, rather than what you might be able to with any profit. What happens to the organisation when you personally is not around to steer it?

Thank you.

> You have more political power than your employees, by a lot.

For sure.

> Do you have plans for what will happen with the company when you two are no longer around? The book is more about such things, rather than what you might be able to with any profit.

Loss is a natural part of life. Nothing exists or remains relevant forever. Market needs, people, and the world at large change. Hopefully for the better. The best we can do is act based on how we understand the world, which is why empathy and curiosity are so immensely valuable. They nudge us to understand the world and other people better, which facilitates more collaboration. I believe the vast majority of people have good intentions, but we often don't understand their behavior because we are blinded by our biases. When someone you respect does something you don't understand, or disapprove of, the rational reaction is curiosity. The alternative is to live an intellectually poorer life, which in turn impedes your ability to practice strategy, which in turn makes you less able to make progress on your goals.

We've considered so called "limited company with special restriction on profit distribution" [1]. It is a one-way "poison pill" for Swedish corporations that wish to permanently limit their ability to pay dividends to shareholders. Ultimately we found it too restrictive. It would risk impeding our ability to fund various open-source software and hardware efforts, among other things. I don't think we would have done it anyway. The risk is too high that you misjudge some aspect of it.

We've also talked about the option of creating foundations and donating our shares to them. Both of us see major risks with that too. In any case I hope it won't be relevant for a long time.

> What happens to the organisation when you personally is not around to steer it?

Daniel is a bit older than me, but unfortunately I have a progressive illness for which I take low-grade chemo and biologics. Modern medicine is amazing, especially the newer biopharmaceuticals that have come out in recent years. I will likely have to scale down my involvement first though.

Daniel would lead our companies to the best of his ability, together with our amazing management teams. I trust him more or less completely with the corporation. I know he will represent my values where it matters the most. He's very good at that. Last time we talked about this the feeling was mutual.

[1]: https://bolagsverket.se/foretag/aktiebolag/startaaktiebolag/...

You are saying something incongruent with what kfreds said!

"Mullvad is weighing in on politics unrelated to its privacy mission because money given to Mullvad is eventually ending up in the hands of Örebropartiet by way of Daniel directing his compensation into his donations."

There, better?

The crux of what I'm saying is that if you give money to Mullvad you are giving money to Örebropartiet, and that's unchanged by the first part of the statement.

Is privacy inconsistent with right to dignity, liberty, and equality?

The US is currently in a very bad place politically. It’s visible not just in politicians, but in everybody’s minds, all the time. A person who believes they’re fighting for their life obsesses over “us vs them”, and forgets their every principle and even most reasoning, until the fight is over. When we spit on your principles, please know that they are our principles, too, we just are not currently well enough to remember it.

In this forum, yes. Unfortunately there are lots of people who don't care to inform themselves in the least. During the weekend my impression was that most people assumed Mullvad only had one founder, owner and CEO. Some people were implying that Mullvad's workforce supported this, which of course is ridiculous. I don't want to be associated with this donation. Then there are the people who think he donated 5 million USD or EUR. Sigh.

It would be nice if people didn't resort to make things up, and instead expressed their disapprovement based on fact. That's what I'm doing. As are several of my colleagues.

> The issue seems to be simply in this case, some people clearly find the private individual's actions objectionable enough to not want to support a product that individual is deeply associated with

Yes, that is clear.

> Fixating on this being done as a private individual just comes off like a bit of a deflection attempt from a pretty straightforward case of individual actions having consequences.

Ah, thanks. That was not my intent. For sure an individual's actions has consequences, especially when you're in a position of power. In this case people are holding Daniel accountable by switching providers. They are acting according to their beliefs. That's fine.

Meanwhile I am also trying to clarify Mullvad's position on the matter. Many people understand it and still disagree. That's also fine.

A bit too late for that now, isn't it? Extreme anti-immigration stances have always been associated with anti-privacy because eventually those stances evolve into state apparatuses designed to identify dissidents and targets for deportation. What will you do when the party your co-founder supports eventually demands stripping away privacy for the sake of finding 'terrorists'? Trying to hold this thin veneer of apoliticalism outside of your privacy stance is a remarkably foolish one and one that most people can identify. Especially those who saw that progression occur in real time.

Then Mullvad would oppose it. I mean, the party is insignificant compared to the other parties in Sweden, so I wouldn't want to call them out specifically. It would be weird to give such a small party attention on our blog. If a journalist were to email us and ask about it explicitly that's another question. Of course Mullvad would oppose it.

> Will Daniels privacy principles stand

I would be very surprised if they didn't.

> or will it bend to suit his likely stronger beliefs in anti immigration?

What makes you say that? He's worked 17 years on building Mullvad, which is worth far more than 5 million SEK.

> Has he made similar contributions to parties against chat control?

Not to my knowledge.

They are making a stand. This stance that they've taken has made me decide that I'm switching from another VPN provider TO Mullvad. Not many people have the backbone to actually stand behind freedom of speech when it may cost them something. It's very admirable.

https://web.archive.org/web/20260629185105/https://dberntsso...

This is literally defending his choice. More than that it is providing direct support to the views you are apparently trying to distance yourself from by suggesting people read literature in favour of them - not in a context where they even see opposing arguments.

But as a fun aside to the people debating that his views aren't right wing... consider this quote from the aforementioned blog (translation made via firefox's swedish to english model)

> A building permit officer at a municipal city building office is primarily dedicated to preventing, making it difficult, costly, delayed and uneasy construction. He causes great damage and thus produces negative value, but still also receives his salary from the tax of others and is thus supported by others.

Can we get more right wing than claiming that imposing standards on industry so they don't go around building death traps that kill people to save a few bucks "causes great damage and thus produces negative value". Not even as an argument that this particular office is overly restrictive, but just as a statement about building permit officers in general.

I'm very far left myself, but I hate this tendency to equate any intellectual engagement with the right wing thought whatsoever with support. It's almost as if rightist politics were some kind of cooties that you catch simply by being in the same room or something.

If the other founder went "here's his blog post where he discusses <these ideas> that potentially justify the support for this party without just being support for right right hate and other political positions" that would be intellectual engagement. That's not what occurred here. What occurred here was a vague gesture in the direction of far right writing as if that somehow justifies the concept.

It's far better to respect people's ability to reach their own conclusions about things. If someone sends me media and tells me in advance what I should think of it, it devalues my estimation of them more than it does of the media in question (which I try to keep an open mind about).

And barring that I would like other people to not direct people to the first group of people's propaganda and writings as if it was a valuable thing to read in itself and to suggest that you might agree with them.

And barring that I would like people to not refer to the above as "intellectual engagement" and defend it on those terms when it is nothing of the sort because there is no engagement.

Rightist politics may not be, but rightist rhetoric surely is. Consider GW Bush' statement "if you're not with us, you're against us" (or the 2025 equivalent "either you support genocide, or you're an antisemite"): where is the room for intellectual engagement in statements such as these?

Your suggested "intellectual engagement" with absolute positions such as these serves absolutely no other purpose than to lend them an air of legitimacy. There absolutely exist rationales that do not deserve to be "heard" or "considered".

Or put another way:

  "Let's meet in the middle", says the unjust man.
  You take a step forward; the unjust man takes a step back.
  "Let's meet in the middle", says the unjust man.

Why are you considering them, then?

> There absolutely exist rationales that do not deserve to be "heard" or "considered".

How do you know which ones are those if you never hear or consider them?

The practical application of the principle that you espouse is that someone has to intellectually engage with these things, and then decide on behalf of the rest of us proles whether we should be "allowed to lend them the air of legitimacy" or not.

To that I say: there's no socialism without freedom, and there's no freedom in general without freedom to think for yourself and make your own judgments. Any ideology that purports to restrict that is inherently authoritarian, whether on the left or on the right, and should be fought tooth and nail.

I have always considered compassion the driving force underlying left wing views. I really can't understand the mind of the spiteful left, it seems such a contradiction of values.

I know it is now an internet meme, but those who considered themselves far left 10 years ago would no be a moderate.

I'm a libertarian socialist though. And by "socialism" I mean all that stuff about the means of production etc, not higher taxes. As far as I'm concerned, the American mainstream left is still closer to American mainstream right than they are to my views.

Using regulations and permitting to discriminate against people who you don't like is a long standing right wing tactic, but isn't the nature of the complaint I quoted above.

Its a strange world now where everyone is expected to have a public opinion on everyone else's opinions to keep them in line. Very anti privacy, anti freedom, and against plurality of opinion.

Here's my interpretation: When someone has a shitty public opionion, we force others to MAKE PUBLIC their opinions.

And because our society is so polarized, we don't talk about opinions or their nuances; we reduce them to binary views (it's possible they are but not always), we pick a side and we light our torches.

Some people do that, yes, but I'd argue most simply don't care enough.

Furthermore, consider that the opinion-like discourse is clearly performative. We all know what the correct virtue signaling looks like, and we know that we need to ruin every person not doing the correct virtue signaling.

So it's less of a plurality-of-opinion situation, and more of a direct-democracy situation: a lynch mob.

(Not saying it's good or bad btw -- not my circus, not my monkeys. Just dishonest to say we love some sort of plurality while doing this I think.)

Relatively speaking HN is an oasis compared to other platforms. Which makes me wonder, are there forums with an even higher quality than HN?

I think the biggest hurdle for something like that would be selecting and keeping enough like-minded moderators to enforce the quality.

People care about the opinions of those they're invested in (emotionally, politically, financially, etc.) and it's those opinions they want to know. People want to associate with those who share their values. It has always been this way.

The guy who made the donation is entitled to his opinions. No one is questioning his right to make a donation.

People are, however, that by paying for the services of a company he owns, they are as a second order effect financing politics they find repugnant.

Really in line with typical views of right-leaning people you see on X etc.

Such a bad place we're in: people say they value "freedom", but then you can't choose you own political representation without being witch-hunted to death by the same "freedom" group.

(I honestly think that the perfect response in this case would be to support the cofounder, if anything, to make their own choices, and refuse to hate on the person's political leaning. But alas, the chains of freedom are super heavy.)

In short, freedom should at least maintain the capability of preserving basic poltical freedom. From my understanding of that party, they are clearly against other people's existing political freedom.

Not bare tribalism, just trying to keep everyone's freedom.

I still remember in 2013 to 2021 when this was happening in the US and wider internet on twitter and reddit. A lot of people in Europe / AUS / NZ thought it was some soup opera made up by the internet's few.

Slight note, it’s soap opera. They got that name because the original sponsors were soap manufacturers.

Indeed. Open borders is the ideal. That's also one of the views that Daniel and I share.

Claming otherwise is at a minimum disengious, but with absolutly no clarification from Daniel directly, it just reads like you are lying about his stances for PR.

It's his ideal. He states in the Flamman article that it is unfortunately not possible due to mismanagement by the Swedish government.

> clarification from Daniel directly

Read the Flamman article and read his blog. I've linked to it elsewhere in this thread. You can choose to believe me or not.

If open boarders are only acceptable when you can refuse immigration based on ethnicity, then no, you do not support open borders. When you work to forcably eject not only first but second generation immigrants, people born in Sweden, based on their ethnicity, you do not support open borders.

The above looks to be a core tenat of Daniel's prefered political party based on their own statements, so its extremely disengious to discuss some old article about supporting free movement while he's actively donating to people who want to brutalize hundred of thousands of Swedish residents because they are the "wrong type" of people.

You are choosing to ignore that OP and many more people don't believe that otherwise this thread would not even exist.

This isn't a simple difference in political beliefs, they believe that certain groups of people are basically subhuman and don't deserve basic human rights.

How can you support that?

I'm not speaking for or against anyone's views for or against anything here, but it's worth noting that Brendan Eich's $1K donation caused quite the stir.

How many people unrelated with your personal gripe, people that were doing a good job since you were paying and satisfied customer, are you willing to punish in order to "send a message"?

This is an impossible standard to live by and demand from everything you buy and every service you pay for. Doubly so if you need to announce to the world you're dropping a product because of something that isn't done by or responsibility of its employees.

The only influence I have is with my money.

> the fact remains some of my money can end up empowering politics I find repugnant

are you paying taxes? are you using gasoline? are you paying for amazon?

Some ratio of your money will always go toward something you hate. The big question is: is for a mulvad subscription that ratio bigger than for the alternative? The next question is: how is the ratio for things you like?

Why should this be obvious? I don't think that's obvious at all. The owner of a company could very easily decide to one day use their company to further their political beliefs/ideologies (see: Twitter, FaceBook, etc..). Why would Mullvad be any different?

To answer your question, we started building this organization in the summer of 2008 for idealistic reasons, and we are still idealists who think privacy is fundamental to a civilized society.

The best strategy for achieving societal impact through entrepreneurship is consistent, long-term, and value-based ownership. For us, this disqualifies taking outside investment, either through venture capital or going public. Mullvad has instead been growing organically without outside investments.

Our principles have withstood the test of time. Our conviction has remained unchanged through multiple serious offers of acquisition and outside investment. Words are cheap of course, but consistent action over the course of almost two decades is not.

Mullvad is about privacy. Neither Daniel nor I have used Mullvad's brand to promote our personal opinions.

On top of this don't change your service based on this outrage. If you change it, then you will prove that Mullvad is malleable by political pressure. You can guess what happens next...

The embellishments of what people actually believe is extremely exhausting.

FWIW, I'm an immigrant in Sweden and if they gained power I would be affected, but we talk about people with differing views to us as if they're actively violent in order to shut down conversation.

This catasphrophising language will eventually not help your cause, because ordinary people start to feel numb to it and the hard-right will not be defeated by it.

By the way this is only during the validation of their asylum-seeker status. Once they get permanent residency they can work.

Q: When people seek asylum, is the expectation that they should return when its safe?

Or is taking in 10% of population mean that you have a permanent minority population that is part of a permanent underclass similar to how black people have it in the US?

Genuinely asking.

>"They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish."

Some of them are doctors and scientists especially from places like Syria.

What? Motherfucker I am part of the underclass, it's brutally hard to escape the underclass and unfortunately if you turn up to a country with no connections, no safety net, no money and no applicable skills then: YOU ARE PART OF THE UNDERCLASS.

Why are all the Foodora drivers Arab? do you think Arabs are pre-disposed for food delivery? No, it's because gig-work that barely pays the bills is the only option for many: this is disgusting servitude, barely surviving like this.

> Some of them are doctors and scientists especially from places like Syria.

Doctors from Syria who don't speak Swedish, need to pass a bunch of Swedish certifications to practice and cannot take female patients aren't going to get along well.

It's a valid point and one I would grant you, but it's very true that the observed reality of things is that asylum seekers are the most vulnerable in society.

Pretending they're not doesn't make this not the case.

Doesn't mean you're automatically underclass. In her whole family nobody is involved in anything criminal. In terms of wealth I would consider them middle class. Like me, I'm also a middle class immigrant though from a western (richer than here) country with university education. I'm just not very ambitious so I coast in a middle level job by choice.

But they all came here with nothing more than high school diplomas. They just work harder for it than I do. Nights, tough work etc. She worked very hard to get a local passport too. Because that's not easy these days.

The stereotype of immigrants ending up straight in the ghetto is incorrect IMO.

Its a well understood point, even to the point that it ends up in economic and sociological studies.[0]

2) “Middle class” is not living paycheck to paycheck, I guess “middle” depends on which country you live in, but in Sweden if you don’t earn well or have secured employment (Ie; paid sick days) then people would likely not call you middle class.

In the UK, most people are working class (not middle) which is more defined by high income white collar work. In the US its based more on yearly income than the type of work or how secure it is. So middle class has many definitions and none of them cover gig-workers.

Working hard isn’t the point, i guess you’re arguing the permanency part, while glossing over where I said its very hard to escape the underclass, even though you’re clearly admitting that its very hard.

FWIW it might help to read a definition of what Underclass means, natives are also a major part of the underclass especially in the UK; its not a derogatory term, its a state of being that is hard to escape: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class_in_the_United_Kin...

So, talking about an outlier who works hard, does nothing to talk about how the overwhelming majority are stuck. Unless you’re going to say every asylum seeker is superhuman, and truthfully now- we’re not talking hypotheticals, we have decades of migration information across the UK and Sweden to compare.

Arguing against what actually happens and talking about statistical outliers as the norm is disingenuous at best and immoral at worst.

[0]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026427512...

They even have a couple of books -- that some of them take very seriously -- that document what they intend to do to us.

You may not owe founders whose cofounders you feel are behaving badly better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it.

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

But as someone that has been in a similar situation to you, I understand it's tough to end up building something big with someone who's politics you do not agree with. I would seriously urge you to consider building something new that rejects this kind of politics explicitly.

Oh, I definitely agree with some of his political opinions, the obvious ones being around free speech, free press, and privacy.

There are important issues where we don't agree. His values around empathy stretch to most sentient beings, and he believes I commit torture when I eat fish for lunch. And he's still willing to associate with me.

Presumably because you are not an immigrant (or the child of an immigrant).

He is in fact the main financial patron of this racist political party. Saying he supports open borders at the same time is just a flat non sequitur.

Ok. Let me try. Please note that I am in no way defending Daniel's decision nor Örebropartiet. I'm simply responding to your claim that my previous statement is not believable.

> He gave $500,000 to a political org that has explicitly called immigrants "parasites,"

That sounds horrible.

I looked it up. Here's [1] a video of that debate in the municipal government. FYI, I would characterise the website as quite right-wing and generally not very trustworthy, but there is a video of Markus Allard along with the quotes.

The title of the video is something about a proposal regarding long-term unemployed individuals. He seems to be talking specifically about long-term unemployed immigrants, 10-20 years. He's complaining that he doesn't think it's right to allow them financial living assistance while Örebro is defunding social services for older people. I have no idea about the actual truth value of any of his statements.

Horrible way of talking about people, but in this case not immigrants in general, it seems. Within the context of people who have supposedly been unemployed for 10-20 years, I understand (but don't agree with) why he says those individuals are parasites.

> dehumanizing phrasing that mirrors Nazi speech and has been used to justify mass murder.

Indeed. His choice of words is dehumanizing.

> Saying he supports open borders at the same time is just a flat non sequitur.

Daniel has a blog that goes back to 2016 where he talks about waste of tax payers' money. What he expresses in his blog is consistent with classical liberalism, which in turn is consistent with freedom of movement.

Where is the flat non sequitur?

[1]: https://www.friatider.se/kaosdebatten-allard-kallar-sverige-...

There are plenty of people for whom it doesn't matter, but for some it does.

I think the bigger problem -- and I don't know the rules for political donations in Sweden -- is that any individual is able to pour millions into a political party of any persuasion. In the US this situation is made much worse since a Supreme Court ruling known as Citizens United which opened the floodgates for the ultra-wealthy to bankroll politicians. But that's another discussion altogether.

> is that any individual is able to pour millions into a political party of any persuasion.

It's an even bigger problem that political parties are heavily subsidized by the state, which favours the establishment.

This goes beyond purely monetary subsidies. Some people employed by the state have an essentially political function or have a large political influence over the population and they have been hired (and incentivized) by the established parties over decades.

I don't really give a darn who you voted for or what your founder did. I like the product I'll keep using it.

And Berntsson's ability to fund ÖP in doing that harm is directly linked to the financial success of Mullvad. Whether you or Mullvad agrees or disagrees with Berntsson or ÖP is irrelevant. Thanks to Berntsson, more money to Mullvad means more harm to us. So why on Earth would I pay you anything?! On the contrary, it would quite obviously be in our best interests if Mullvad fails as a company, if possible to such an extent that Berntsson is ruined financially and can no longer fund "nationalist socialist" parties such as ÖP.

It just doesn't matter whether Mullvad believes in free speech or not, not when Berntsson is making it so that giving you money causes us to be persecuted and harmed. And to be perfectly honest, I find your framing of this as "philosophical" to be profoundly appalling, and it tells me that you do not at all understand what is actually going on.

> Mullvad protects the right for people to express things we don't agree with. We protect the right of everyone to access views we don't agree with.

> That said, if you no longer want to be a Mullvad customer for philosophical reasons, we think it's important to honor that

Combining the above statements, would you have any recommendations on VPN providers for people who choose to leave Mullvad? As you will agree, anonymity and privacy are under attack the world over and even people who leave Mullvad deserve have access to tools enabling the same.

The VPN space is a cesspool of shady operators who seem to spend more on marketing than technology and it's really hard even for the HN audience to know which providers are legit. This is where your background and experience are really valuable, so any recommendations would be very welcome.

Yes, I am aware that the ask here is to endorse a competitor, however if someone has made up their mind to leave Mullvad, they are going to do so anyway. Enabling them to do so while retaining their anonymity and privacy will go a long way in advancing the political aims Mullvad stands for.

Since those conversations I've always thought that IVPN is closest aligned with Mullvad's values. Again, I haven't spoken with Nick in ages, so I don't know what IVPN is doing now.

I agree 100%, which is why the dehumanizing intolerance of the Mullvad CEO completely disqualifies your organization from being on the same side as that statement.

I agree that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission, and shouldn't be.

But what I do care about, strongly, is that Mullvad as a company doesn't bow to pressure from pro-immigration activists who are attempting to impose social and financial consequences on people and institutions like Mullvad that tolerate anti-immigration political speech. Which is of course why people are publicizing this donation and publicly stating that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because of it.

I want to state publicly that what would make me no longer do business with Mullvad is if Mullvad, organizationally, attempted to pressure Daniel Berntsson into not donating to anti-immigration political parties because it induces pro-immigration activists to attempt to boycott the company. I don't want to live in a world where people trying to run a pro-privacy VPN feel pressure to police anti-immigration speech unrelated to the core mission among people in their organization, and that's the principle that my customer dollars are riding on.

Thank you.

If I work for Google and buy a BMW, that doesn't mean Google endorses BMW.

> while cozying up to the government

Uh, the Örebro Party isn't even elected. In fact, they have 0 seats at the Swedish parliament.

A political entity =/= The Government.

When you're a founder or one of the c-suite your actions represent the full company. That's part of your job.

In the European countries I'm familiar with, company directors are held to a higher standard precisely because they represent the company and have a duty to avoid damaging it through their private as well as public acts. Is Sweden really so very different?

The fact that you're claiming that a donation to an anti-immigration political party is the sort of conduct that people "held to a higher standard" by law should be forbidden from doing is a type of political censorship that you're trying to enact via the mechanism of corporate law, and it's worth destroying that mechanism of corporate law over it.

It doesn't really matter how that's happened - it wouldn't be the donation that's the problem from the pov of corporate law in other countries, it's the fact that a company director has harmed the company.

But you're doing the same thing, making the same threat. You've only escalated it from a conscientious protest to a Mexican stand off.

I'm not icked-out by immigration discussion, but I am concerned by business owners starting down a political path. VPNs are not a very glamorous segment of the industry, and Mullvad had carved out a niche in taking a neutral side and fostering trust through a transparent product. My former boss spoke well of them and visited their sites in-person after hearing the marketing line about their RAM-only VPNs. Their appeal was not in protecting politicized speech, but protecting all speech and defending it as an apolitical technological imperative.

Now more than ever, it's hard for me to believe their brand identity. You're allowed to have political opinions, voice them and vote for them when you're a CEO. But spending your paycheck on inordinate political investments is how you ask for a boycott. It's how I would feel about any political investment that their CEOs make, and its already tarnished the Mullvad brand for me.

Yup, because I want the people attempting the conscientious protest to have less power to influence businesses and the people businesses employ. An apolitical firm is less likely to bow to pressure from one group of activists if they know that another, opposing group of activists is paying attention to how they respond to pressure from the first group of activists. Really, this has nothing at all to do with Mullvad specifically, except it does happen that I am a long-time customer of theirs.

> Now more than ever, it's hard for me to believe their brand identity. You're allowed to have political opinions, voice them and vote for them when you're a CEO. But spending customer money on political campaigns is how you ask for a boycott. It's how I would feel about any political investment that their CEOs make, and its already tarnished the Mullvad brand for me.

I don't see a meaningful difference between voicing political opinions and voting based on them, and making private donations to a political cause. Any money at all that an owner of a company spends on anything, down to their groceries, comes from their ownership of the company; just as any money at all that an employee of a company spends on anything comes from their salary.

But also lots of CEOs of companies make all kinds of political donations, many of which I think are bad. The reason this particular donation is making the news is because it's to an anti-immigration party rather than a pro-immigration party or NGO or some other cause; and a lot of people want to exert social pressure to make that specific political stance dangerous. Those are exactly the people I want to lose.

One of them is enabled by customer trust and investment, the other isn't? People wouldn't want to cut off their money if it wasn't going towards political parties. It's the connection between the business and the private donations that is causing the outrage, Mullvad's brand can't really escape that sort of conflation once their CEOs spend their paycheck on those donations. Same goes for the rest of Big Tech, look at Oracle or Meta for example.

> The reason this particular donation is making the news is because it's to an anti-immigration party

It's because Mullvad had an apolitical reputation. Maybe it was a lie, maybe it wasn't, but by either CEO investing in a non-privacy stance they're risking the brand appeal they once had. It's unfortunate, and I don't think it has to be a winners/loser mentality like you're pushing forward. These sorts of investments are the ones that erode principled businesses and divide their customerbase. Whether or not you agree with it is inconsequential, it's the political vacillation that is concerning beyond the outrage/fringe politics angle.

Today you might support them, next year you might be wishing you never gave them the confidence. I understand why many customers, even apolitically, see this as their breaking point.

"I'll boycott you if you keep supporting free speech" and "I'll boycott you if you stop supporting free speech" are hardly the same thing, especially when aimed at a company whose business is all about free speech, which at the dismay of some people also includes speech you don't like.

A stance that Sweden should reduce the amount of immigration they accept would be utterly unremarkable and never result in outrage like this.

I don't believe this claim, because immigration is a live political issue in my country (the United States) just as it is in Sweden; and people absolutely claim that reducing the amount of immigration the US accepts is immoral and genocidal. Seriously, claims of this nature are a huge amount of contemporary American politics and this is obvious to anyone who has seen the name "Donald Trump" in a news publication talking about the US in the past decade. Also I've read Bryan Caplan's argument that not having open borders is morally equivalent to Jim Crow, and read plenty of other people who think similarly to him.

I'm in the US too. Can you provide some sources?

https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueUnpopularOpinion/comments/1llz6...

It's the same "You're either with us or not" argument that forces a side.

So it is related.

It’s the Democrats and Republican politicians and party activists who can’t compromise. The Democrats don’t address illegal immigration, even the easy wins like when immigrants were placed in hotels while homeless Americans were in the street and crummy shelters (Maine). Then Trump finally deports criminals, but also technically-illegal people who’ve lived decades and started families here (and haven’t commit any crimes beyond speeding tickets), and restricts and harasses legal immigrants.

There’s something wrong with politics where parties can’t even accept the most obvious exceptions to their “controversial” issues, maybe because of the stupid “slippery slope”. I expect people to fight over 1 million refugees who aren’t misbehaving but overloading systems. I don’t expect people to fight over an immigrant who assaulted someone, or a legal immigrant who is giving more than they take.

literally translated, “humans with empathy”

That's what abortion activists, genocidal communists, "religion of peace", etc. have all claimed.

There's nothing "empathetic" about neocolonialism and importing third-worlders enmass to the West.